To think this child maintenance benefits loophole is ridiculous ?

[Strawberrrrry]

I was talking to my sister today. Love my sister, don’t begrudge my nieces and nephews etc. However, I find this benefits loophole ridiculous, though I appreciate she doesn’t make the rules and is just claiming what she can. Anyway.

My sister has just broken up with her partner, they have two kids together. He is a high earner and child maintenance will be £1,200 a month (via the child maintenance service).

She earns £900 a month working part time, school time hours.

She has just put in a claim for benefits and she has been told she will receive £1,400 a month. This includes housing benefits, income support, child benefit. It doesn’t include discounts from council tax etc.

This brings her total monthly income to £3,500 and some change (I have given rounded figures). Completely tax free. I had assumed her benefits would be reduced as she gets a high amount of child maintenance. But no. They don’t count it. She admits herself that her monthly income is massive and she did first assume that the children’s maintenance would warrant some sort of deduction.

As I said, fair play to her as she is only doing what the system allows. However, I can’t help but feel this is a huge loophole, and there should be some sort of cap i.e once you are getting £500+ a month in child maintenance, it starts to affect benefits? And I realise her ex could lose his job at any point or stop paying, but if that happens surely benefits could reassess at that point…

It just seems ludicrous that someone can be getting that level of monthly income from maintenance & benefits, completely tax free. I’m sure it can’t just be my sister in this position.

AIBU?

This has been a problem for a long time. I do feel it is an unfair system. I think the answer is the non resident parent gets the maintenance collected through the tax system.

When my grandparents got custody of me the amount my father was meant to pay was classed as income for benefits.

The CSA at the time never got a penny. So we started every week short of money.

Ni family should live like that and until we have a CMS system that is fit for purpose for the majority of cases then a tiny majority of cases like this simply shouldn’t be allowed to impact policy.

Your sister you say 🤔

That bit where you say you love your sister and don’t begrudge your nieces/nephews etc.

Are you sure? Because it really sounds like you’d rather they were significantly worse off.

One of the reasons that system can't work today is the lack of social housing for single mothers. Many women are in insecure rented accommodation; private landlords won't wait for men who 'forget' to make this months payment.

Over a third of NRPs don't pay.

If you don't allow (typically) mums to claim, you hand a great deal of coercive control to abusive men. I'd rather pay than have that happen. And I'm a net tax-contributor.

Surely if he is paying 1200pcm then he is barely having the kids at all overnight? So it's all on her.

So really, it's the 2,200 in benefits which is funding her whole month, and the 1,200 is the additional fund the father is paying because he is failing to provide 50/50 care.

Maybe your frustrations should be at the father for not having his kids half the time.

Yabu. The children will benefit from that money. It's not a race to the bottom.

When I was self employed and on UC a couple of years ago, I had to self report my income every month. Surely they could implement something similar with child maintenance. Example: did you receive your £1,200 maintenance this month? No. Full benefits. Yes. reduction in benefits.

The taxpayer is effectively subsidising lifestyle in this type of case.

and she is better off (has more disposable) than when she was with her ex. She will be able to use her whole salary, £1,000, as ‘fun’ money.

support element

There isn’t a support element on UC.

Just think Lauryn Goodman gets 12.5k? A month from kyle walker, free house and can claim UC because she doesn’t actually work.

The real scandal is that society lets men get away with not paying proper child maintenance!

Her salary just jumped up £100 a month, lucky her! Anyway you sound like a crappy sister

The taxpayer is effectively subsidising lifestyle in this type of case

"Lifestyle" - she's going to have a harder time than me, in my owned home with my husband and our two kids, both of us working ft. Would I begrudge her having the same take home pay as us? No. Because its going to be way way harder for her.

I'm happy to live in a country which has a system where the taxes I pay contribute towards women who are left to raise children men have abandoned.

But then when the RP says they’ve not had the money, they’ll approach the NRP who will say they’ve paid it in cash, then there would be a lengthy investigation until a conclusion was reached…

It's coz men can often be jerks and not pay up

Yes, they really do rake it in. Being a single mum with a high earning ex who pays for his children really live pretty comfortably.
I know a couple who work minimal hours, topped up with UC, rent, maintenance, they are having £3000+ .
Equally there are the mums out there who get the same UC wise but nothing from then fathers. Ultimately the non paying fathers should be to blame but even then it wouldn't be fair as they will all be on different wages.

If she feels bad, tell her to donate the surplus to Gingerbread or Women's Aid. Help some other single mums. One hand washes the other.

Otherwise accept that the risk to women, and the admin costs, are not worth it to make sure women with children are properly chastised for it.

This!!

You you want your sister (who's a single working parent) and your nieces and nephews to have a lower standard of living because you're jealous?

Plenty of men pay proper maintenance. Plenty of women exploit the shit out of the system. Plenty of men are shit and don’t pay. Some NRPs are female and don’t pay. There is fault with the system across the board.

Plenty of men pay proper maintenance.

37% don't pay anything at all. Then some pay only a portion. I'd not call that 'plenty'. I'd call that a national scandal.

That would require political will to make child maintenance an issue that’s cared about.

CMS is an ineffective shambles that have a swathe of powers that are rarely used despite huge numbers of non payers.

Your sister is an anomaly.
It wouldn’t be remotely as easy as you say as you’d need staffing for both the benefits side and the CMs side because you’d have RP’s saying they didn’t receive it and NRP’s saying they paid it. For the tiny number of people in her position it wouldn’t be remotely cost effective. If it was it would have been done when the money all went to the state bar the first £20 a week.

It used to be counted and it was a total nightmare.

It allowed shitty men to abuse their ex partner as the benefits would still be reduced if they stopped paying randomly leaving their ex unable to cover bills/rent that month. Many men used this to play games.

Other men refused to pay because "it'll just come off your benefits anyway" because the dc wouldn't be any better off.

In general it had the effect of pusing women and children further into poverty and allowed men to feel ok about avoiding payment and allowed abusive men to continue to ruin lives. It's much better how it is now even if there are some edge cases like this where people seem to benefit "too much".

But some do and for those it should be counted. UC is updated monthly so if a father stopped paying then it would be adjusted for that assessment period and from then on.