New to child maintenance

[BeBusyHelper]

Hi all just a quick question

just applied for CMS and I’ve just got a message saying that I will receive £212 per month for one child. The father of my child we have split apart his head of year in London non-teaching role and I believe that he gets paid more than what he does. He only has a child for one night he doesn’t pay for any expenses like school clothing or anything or things she really needs. I pay for all her activities. I believe he has no bills to pay because he lives with his mother, i.e. mortgage he does not drive. she spent one night with him on the weekend and he phones her when he feels like it. It could be weeks most of the time I see on their stories that is our party and everything so how can I go by that they are paying the right amount if he’s expenses ain’t calculate him right?

question is do you think I am getting enough money for my daughter per month?

He can't do the school run as he is at the school doing his job.

Do you work?

It sounds low i get about that for 1 child and exH earns c£26-30k and does 2/7 nights. Either he earns less than you think or is overpaying pension or the number of nights he is claiming is wrong or he has another child. You can query it and have it checked again but if he’s on PAYE it should be accurate.

He's not going to be earning much as support staff in a school.

Given that his take home is likely to be around the £2k mark, paying £700 was about a third of his salary. It actually makes me wonder if his mum was contributing to nursery costs.

Tbf I don't think most people outside the profession are aware of the pay differential between teaching staff and support staff.

HoY is not a support role in all schools. In the schools I've worked in it's a teacher with extra responsibility points and a slightly reduced timetable..

The £212 will be his contribution though, cms have calculated that is the monthly amount he will owe you. He doesn’t need to pay you anything else on top of this.
Whether he pays bills or not or runs a car is irrelevant

I get slightly more than that only by about £30 but with no overnights/he doesn’t see her more than her popping over for an hour once or twice a month.

The OP said he is hoy in a non teaching role. Maybe it is a very large school. I haven't ever encountered this as a non teaching role but maybe more common in London.

We've got non teaching support HoY roles in every year 7 to 13.

Thank you all for your input, it has helped me out and now I have an understanding of it all.

CM is a fixed percentage of his income. His outgoings don’t matter so let go of the
unfairness that he doesn’t have expenses. Ideally he would do what other dads do and pay something extra like half of uniform or give her monthly pocket money but legally he only has to pay CM.
CM is his contribution to the costs that you incur looking after her. You probably spend more than £424 pm (double £212) but it is what it is and yeh best that you can do is research help with wraparound etc to help your costs.
Courts can’t and don’t make dads see their kids and that’s understandable. A system where dads had to see their kids would have dads abuse their child so that they would be able to get out of that responsibility.

This is so pathetic. I work full time as a teacher and did the school run as a single parent every day using before and after school care / childminder etc. so many dads use the excuse that they work as a reason they can't possibly do the day to day.

It's what CMS says, they check what he's being paid through his employer and tax records. His living arrangements, his outgoings are not relevant. He can't do school runs unless your child goes to the school he works at.

But if op doesnt work why would she pay for wrap around care just so he could pick dd up that would be stupid

We don't know she doesn't work. I would assume that if their child is of school age she certainly will post separation but I also imagine the ex won't for a moment give a crap that she'll be paying a childcare bill so that BOTH of them can work.

She said she's a student and isn't earning at the moment.

He paid £500 a month nursery fees which he didn't have to do so he will likely help with wrap around care. A lot of people will pay more when they know where the money is actually going.

Child support is calculated on the NRP income and how often they have the child overnight. It is the legal minimum amount he is required to pay. His outgoings and your outgoings don’t come into it. Does he suck as a parent and a person for not financially contributing more if he can afford it? Absolutely. But as long as the information they have for him is correct he is legally doing nothing wrong and there is nothing you can do about it as far as I’m aware.

Are you sure he is still teaching? I don’t know of a single teacher who can book a week off to go on holiday.

The ex is not a teacher. He's a member of school support staff. Although having said that, they can't normally holiday in teem time either.

I think that’s fine, I get £7 a week for 4 kids

Doesn’t matter whether you think it’s enough - It’s calculated on income and number of nights he has the children and that’s what required to pay.

i expect you’re also able to claim housing, uc, child benefit etc to top up your income

What income she doesnt work the government aka us are paying for her and her child

She's studying so she presumably will be able to earn better in a few short years. You are also paying for her child because £200 from the ex isn't going far.

@TheNumberBlocks it's not a race to the bottom. It's disgraceful that so many absent parents pay nothing or virtually nothing. That doesn't make it ok that the base rate of CMS is so laughable low.

Is it enough? Probably not. But the CMS rates are pathetic.
If he's employed (rather than self employed) then he can't lie about his income but could potentially put more into his pension. His outgoings aren't taken into account, and legally he doesn't have to pay anything other than what the CMS have calculated.