Guest post: 'We overhauled the Child Support Agency precisely because it wasn’t working'

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

1. Does the service actually use the powers it has to make parents face consequences for non-payment?

Yes. As many of you know, we overhauled the Child Support Agency precisely because it wasn’t working. Over time we have made our consequences tougher and importantly, we are using them more and more.

The powers we can use include deducting money from the non-paying parent’s earnings through their employer and accessing funds from bank accounts, including joint accounts. We can register the debt with a credit reference agency, which can impact their credit rating and ability to get a mortgage. We can also grant court action for liability orders, which means Enforcement Agents could come and sell their property to pay unpaid maintenance and any costs. If that doesn’t work, we can also disqualify them from driving, confiscate their licence, take their passport away, or send them to prison.

Because of the changes we have made, our service is improving year on year - and the numbers show we are using the powers we have to help families. The amount of maintenance arranged for the benefit of children has increased by 20% compared to last year, and £1 billion of maintenance is expected to be arranged this year alone.

Currently, there are 48,300 deductions from earnings orders and requests in place; and 3,500 regular and lump sum deduction orders in place. During the quarter ending June 2019, £26.1 million was collected from parents undergoing a deduction from earnings order or request; and £2.9m was deducted directly from the paying parent’s bank accounts.

2. How much effort do you put in to finding a non-paying parent?

A huge amount. We can use all kinds of sources to find an individual, from HMRC records to someone’s phone bill information. We’ll do everything we can to contact them and contact their employer if we need to.

If we’ve made reasonable attempts to contact them and given them enough chances to pay, we can start enforcement measures using just their address - regardless of whether we’ve been able to talk to them or not.

Before that point, we’ll use our administrative powers to encourage them to pay, such as the deduction from earnings order (if they are employed) or a deduction order, where we can freeze and collect money from a bank account that we have evidence they use. If this doesn’t work, we’ll move on to tougher legal action.

3. How does it work when non-paying parents have other children they owe maintenance for? How does that affect what my child will get?

We split the payments on a pro-rata basis so no child is favoured over the other.
These calculations seem complicated because they involve three households: yours, the other household with children, and the paying parent. You can use our online calculator to work out how much you should be getting. It’ll show you what we’re likely to work out for you.

How many children the paying parent has affects how much they pay you for your child. How much they earn is taken into account to make sure they can afford it, and reflects how much they’d pay for their child if they were living with them. For example, if the paying parent is on the basic rate of child maintenance, then how much they have to pay you depends on how many other children they’re paying for as well. So, in this case, if paying parent is paying for one child, then they’ll pay 12% of their gross weekly income. If there’s two children, they’ll pay 16%, and three or more children is 19%. This is assuming that your child stays with you all the time.

4. Some parents are using job-hopping to avoid paying. What are you doing about that?

If a parent changes jobs, unless their income goes up or down by 25%, the maintenance calculation will remain the same until the annual review – but rest assured that we have access to real time earnings information from HMRC to verify current income figures.

If you’re concerned about the paying parent deliberately job-hopping to avoid paying, you can request a mandatory reconsideration where your maintenance calculation will be reassessed and their earnings are looked into in more detail.

It can be difficult to get a small minority of parents with complex incomes to comply. That’s why we have a new compliance and arrears strategy, which includes proposed changes to target loopholes.

This is in addition to working more closely with HMRC and dedicating more resources to the specialist financial investigation unit, who have the power to look more closely into individual circumstances to see if parents are actively avoiding their responsibility.

We can’t force a paying parent to stay in a certain job, and people who do job-hop are difficult to pursue. But we’ll use every power at our disposal to get them to pay for their children.

5. Some parents use self-employment to hide their earnings and pay less. What are you doing about that?

If someone suspects their ex-partner of avoiding paying child maintenance, fraud, or not declaring their earnings, they should inform us straight away so we can refer the case to our Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) and investigate the situation fully.

They can check the accuracy of the information that the paying parent has given the CMS. When it comes to assessing how much a self-employed person should be paying, we receive their gross income and gross taxable profit of their business for the most recent tax year from HMRC – and they can charge penalties for inaccurate reporting if the FIU finds out that tax hasn’t been paid.

6. What about parents who deliberately aren’t registered as UK taxpayers, but have a home in the UK?

We’re aware of a small number of parents whose payments don’t match up with their finances and resources, because they can choose to support themselves via a complex arrangement of assets rather than taking a salary.

We have new powers to deal with this. It means that assets from a specified list can be taken into account when calculating child maintenance, including houses. If the total value of those assets is above £31,250, we’ll calculate what’s called a notional income of 8% of the value of those assets. This aims to be effective in targeting a parent with a wealthy lifestyle where their income is complex or can’t be pinned down.

7. Why aren’t the additional costs of raising a disabled child taken into account for the calculation?

CMS goes off the paying parent’s income which takes a percentage from their earnings based on the number of children they have, rather than the specific circumstances of a child.

Through the welfare system, there’s financial support available for parents raising children with disabilities such as the Disability Living Allowance (DLA), which can provide up to £148.85 a week to help with the cost of looking after a child under 16 depending on the level of help needed. You can find more information, such as the eligibility requirements and how to claim, online.

When your child turns 16, DLA becomes Personal Independence Payments (PIP). We’ll write to let them know, as usually they’ll need to apply for it. A claim can be started by calling the DWP on 0800 917 2222, with the information provided in the PIP claimant guide. This system also provides up to £148.85 a week.

8. Why do payment amounts change, and often without notice?

We’ll set the payment amount for the paying parent and you’ll be informed if we changed that.

If you don’t get the amount we’ve told you, or you don’t get anything at all, let us know and we’ll chase them. We can use our enforcement measures, or move them on to the collect-and-pay system.

9. Inconsistent advice is a big problem. Why can’t I have a dedicated case worker?

You will get a dedicated worker who will oversee your case if it’s particularly complicated. But, in most cases, our trained staff have the right level of understanding and expertise to help you. We regularly train our staff to make sure they are equipped to handle the variety of cases that come their way.

We’re continually looking at our service to make sure we’re delivering the best outcomes we can. For example, we’ve changed the way we route calls, improving how many land with the right team straight away. Colleagues know they can take action on customer queries, and that they should give clear, consistent expectations on how long things may take so you don’t feel in the dark.
And, no matter how you choose to contact our department, we will work hard to provide you with an effective resolution and, importantly, get money to your family as early as possible.

10. Why won’t I get maintenance for my child past the age of 18?

Sometimes you can, because of how we legally define a child. Your child is eligible for CMS if they’re under the age of 20 and in full-time education, or you’ve registered for child benefits for them. To be eligible for child benefits until they’re 20 years old, again, they need to be in approved full-time education or training, and live in the UK. If this isn’t the case, when your child turns 19, the paying parent is no longer liable.

Baroness Stedman-Scott will be returning to the post on Thursday 10 October

[thetideishigh]

@BaronessStedmanScott

The CMS staff may be working very hard indeed but it needs to be accepted that this is likely due to being ultimately hampered by the system they have to operate within. The CMS system sets them up to be "busy fools". Massive workload but inadequate returns thereon in terms of funds recovered for the RPs. They give NRP's too many chances, believing them at every turn and dismissing the RPs complaints/suggestions. This means they are revisiting cases over and over again each time the NRP defaults/job hops/goes self-employed. Start from the basic principle that NRPs are in the CMS system because they haven't offered an adequate funding arrangement. They are not to be trusted in terms of their willingness to pay the right/full amount voluntarily.

The one phrase of "management speak" I tolerate and use is "Work smarter not harder". In terms of the CMS, please have someone with a receptive mind/"can do" attitude go back through this thread in very great detail there's such a wealth of information of how to REALLY overhaul the system instead of mild tinkering and promises of improvements in the future.

Please refer to my earlier post about setting a "NMCM" - National Minimum Child Maintenance amount (although London weighting possibly appropriate) but obviously not applicable to higher earning NRPs. If the government did this then many cases relating to low earners would require very little in the way of detailed calculations. Proof of earnings is available through the PAYE/self-assessment system. If NMCM is made a cumulative non-cancellable debt it doesn't matter that self-assessment individuals data is in arrears, the balance of the debt can be recalculated accordingly once the tax return has been filed each year. Absolutely any NRP with CMS arrears needs to have passport withdrawn, it shouldn't be a last resort. If they "need" it back for work reasons (as I'd put money on a loophole opening up whereby employers are used to help NRPs get a passport whether or not it was a genuine need) then they need to fund the CMS costs and their own costs for an appeal hearing in respect of return of passport.

The government should be interested in tip offs regarding NRPs hiding their income one way or another because they'll also not be paying the right amount of tax each year if they are under declaring in some way.

The Universal Credit system doesn't hold back to ensure it is using the right power at the right time, oh no ! Right in with sanctions, no questions asked or excuses tolerated and financial hardship is apparently just collateral damage.

Q) If the government can introduce and support the continued existence of the harsh Universal Credit benefits system with draconian no questions asked or leeway allowed "sanctions" relating thereto, why can't it introduce a fit for purpose fearsome CMS service too ?

A) It could, it just doesn't seem to want to and we can only conclude that it's because 90% of NRPs are men. Women & children are suffering financial hardship which has a lifelong financial impact, especially for the woman/mother who scrimped to fund the basics leaving nothing for her to fall back on later in life when the NRP played the system to minimise/avoid their share of the childrearing costs.

I'm sorry @BaronessStedmanScott. Your reply offers nothing more than the promise of "jam tomorrow" to mostly women, some of whom are having to financially struggle, right now, to buy the bread upon which it might be spread.

[Graphista]

Totally agree it's not a case of "can't" it's a case of "won't" and the reason is plain misogyny!

And it's so disheartening and disappointing when women in power who COULD make a difference support & defend misogynistic policies and practices

[mammabearandhercubs]

You cannot take away foreign passports from absent and dead beat parents as they are not property of the UK government. so they can still leave the country if they have a non British passport. Am I correct?

[thetideishigh]

What % of non-paying/underpaying NRPs hold a foreign passport I wonder ?

If people are in the UK but not abiding by the socially accepted norms/responsibilities such as funding the raising of their UK based children, should they be allowed to remain in the UK ? Sounds horribly xenophobic to even come up with thoughts like this but.....

There would need some additional thought on technicalities such as this but I'd hazard a guess that we're wasting our time here discussing the matter .

There simply is no collective will of the government to tackle the matter properly and the rebranding of the CSA is nothing more than a "smoke and mirrors" confidence trick, hence the need to come on MN to try and convince us that what RPs are experiencing daily isn't actually the reality of the situation.

[Shessobrave]

Well said @thetideishigh

[HelenaDove]

Im child free by choice so got no skin in the game so to speak but the experiences on here are appalling.

Housing association call centres also tend to speak to tenants in the same way IME and the experience of others.

It seems to be a culture that is heavily ingrained and is happening in more than one sector.

cookiemonster5 im so sorry to read of your experience im glad you have a supportive DH He sounds lovely

[SeeItForWhatItIs]

@MumsnetGuestPosts

[SeeItForWhatItIs]

Glad to see that this "advertisement" from the DWP has invoked a balanced response. That was a joke BTW. When discussing CMS, it's always a one-sided conversation to fit the government's narrative of "deadbeat Dads" and "arrears". Most of which is untrue.

The Baroness is a fool if she the thinks CMS is working well. She is utterly out-of-touch with reality and is unwilling to listen to balanced arguments.

The reason there is so much non-compliance with CM payments is because the amount of CM demanded by the government isn't affordable to many, it drives behaviours of Parental Alienation and isn't fitting with what it costs to bring up a child. She seems to forget that when two parents split up, there are now TWO single parents.

CMS is yet another government organisation that bullies clients. Sometimes to their death.

Why not read the facts about CMS driving suicide in the UK at the rate of 1000 non resident parents per year?

Information painstakingly obtained through FoI requests (with requests often ducked by government departments) to DWP, MoJ and Police forces.

www.stopcmsdrivingsuicide.org/
www.facebook.com/STOPcmssuicide