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?

Yep, I'm a single parent with a full time job earning £29k which isn't a huge salary, but isn't AWFUL and I still get UC. I don't have childcare costs either.

My ex’s first baby mum was getting 2k a month maintenance off him for one child whilst claiming full benefits of around £1300 and not working. I questioned this but apparently it’s because we shouldn’t punish mothers and the government thinks it’s ok. That’s fine but what’s astonishing is the government is happy to pay minimum for children to mothers on benefits and so many children live in poverty as that minimum is so little. I never understood it at all.

apparently it’s because we shouldn’t punish mothers and the government thinks it’s ok.

It's because someone on benefits getting regular maintenance at all is actually nowhere near as common as it should be due to how shit CMS are.

Women on benefits who are getting thousands of pounds a month in maintenance are in minuscule numbers

Women on benefits who are getting thousands of pounds a month in maintenance are in minuscule numbers

There might not be many getting thousands, but there are lots who are getting way more than they need in benefits because the fathers are doing the right thing and paying for their children. It’s wrong and if benefits are paid out, then maintenance should be paid back to the benefit system.

It might be a lot cleaner if women (or rather, resident parents) were paid benefits from CMS, and the money was collected as tax from the fathers (or other NRPs). Those fathers who choose to pay extra can do so, all resident parents get money, clear system for collection without all the did he / didn't he confusion over payments. You'll never make them all pay, but that would likely get more overall payments.

Well just go back to how it was, then. Thousands of women receiving fuck all from the ex, yet having whatever he should be paying deducted from their benefits.

Maintenance is not reliable and there are no consequences to the ex partner I’d they do not pay.
Also universal credit takes approximately 6 weeks to pay you after a change in circumstances. You get nothing in this period. If the ex partner does not pay, UC does not instantly make up the shortfall!

Deducting the maintenance that resident parents are supposed to receive in benefits isn't the only option. It is possible for the CMS to go after payments from non resident parents and to use it to fund the benefits. It could be made as difficult to avoid paying as council tax, and it can be a debt that lasts for life or until it is paid instead of being forgotten about as soon as the child turns 18.

Yes it was like that when my kids were small

The benefits system is a gravy train designed to reward not taking responsibility for yourself. The less you contribute, the more you gain.

Thats the welfare system is losing support so fast from people who are sick of being fleeced.

Forgive my cynicism. 15 years and counting. No one in power gives a flying fuck about single mums struggling. They consider we brought it on ourselves. All kudos directed to those who manage to dodge payment.

You've clearly never been 'on benefits'.

NRP’s have enough of an issue with the assumed idea that their contribution is funding their ex’s lifestyle without that actually being the case

If that were remotely true then the system would go back to what it used to be.

Previously RP's on benefits were only allowed to keep £20 a week form maintenance. The rest was owed to the Sec of State to go toward the welfare bill.

The amount owed to the SoS got so high it was decided that something must be done... so they said the RP's could keep it

If the CMS system was fit for purpose and/or the majority of NRP's were paying it would have been switched back. Especially given the obviously dislike of single mothers by several governments since the system was changed.

She is also doing all or most of the childcare for about £30 a day- no one else would look after this man's kids so cheaply so he has got himself a bargain

It is scandalous that the taxpayers funds her lifestyle choice despite her receiving money from the ex. Unsustainable.

If mothers lost benefits because the father was paying more, then fathers simply wouldn’t pay. The argument is that it’s better for the children that the absent parent should take financial responsibility, and mothers generally spend money on their children so better not to have children in poverty. If they had to means-test maintenance payments, not only would it be a huge and burdensome cost for the government, it would also be a massive disincentive, and the number of parents as well off as OP’s sister are very small. For the most part, it’s a matter of getting the father to pay what he should, or indeed anything - and if the father stopped paying, or pays irregularly, how then would the resident parent cope? It’s designed for the well-being of the children. (My own ex never paid anything once we were divorced, and ran rings round the CMS, which I understand is a far more common state of affairs.)

It's scandalous that when the government of the day had such a debt owed to them by non-paying NRP's their decision was "let the RPs keep the money that we know often doesn't get paid..." rather than any serious implementation of sanctions for those that don't pay.

Thats the scandal of successive governments

And the reason it's so scandalous is that CMS actually have a raft of powers that they could use.

Such little is the political will to use them that when I briefly worked there I asked during training about two powers not mentioned (one of which doesn't need a court order - CMS can just do it!) the people training me didn't even know about them!!

I knew as I'd had to fight my ex for money for our children.

I agree, absolutely ludicrous. These children have two working parents who, between them, can afford to pay for their children's needs.
Why should I, the tax payer pay?
This is one of the benefit issues which needs resolving.

Absolutely spot on

Why linking of maintenance and benefits would require CMS being sorted first and foremost.

And for some reason no government, all predominantly male, have gone anywhere near that issue with any seriousness for many years...

Otherwise you end up with children in the situation I was in where my father was supposed to pay my Grandmother £64 a week for us. He never did. CSA did nothing. Benefits people took £64 a week from her as income. Left us completely in poverty.

That's not a loophole. And you can't apply for housing benefit or income support anymore. She will have applied for universal credit.

I think people should be more up in arms about the huge amounts of fathers dodging paying for their children.

The % of women who are quids in with maintenance and benefits is tiny.

Its disappointing again to see that it’s another “oh they are coining it in” rhetoric, when the scandal is how many of us aren’t getting anything.

Also, maintenance, even from paying parents is subject to change, it can go up, but frequently it goes down and/or stops. The speed at which things are sorted out is glacial, so you would find mothers not receiving maintenance but being stopped it in their benefits for months until they had requested the reams of evidence required. Or they would get one payment, everything would be changed then next month no payment, but benefits are still changed.

It would plunge children (because that’s who the money is for) into poverty very quickly. I know the feeling is is single mums are all in it “cos benefits” but for those who receive maintenance it often barely touches the sides.

Thats the scandal tbh.

I think people should be more up in arms about the huge amounts of fathers dodging paying for their children.

-The % of women who are quids in with maintenance and benefits is tiny.

It says a lot about society that when this comes up it's always about the mothers potentially getting benefits and maintenance and never the disgrace about it being societally acceptable to dodge paying maintenance