CSA reform - single parents to pay to use service - to be very angry!!

[timefliesby]

www.gingerbread.org.uk/news_detail.aspx?ID=235

So, the government is closing all existing child maintenance cases over the next three years and washing its hands of the £3.5 billion it has FAILED to collect on behalf of single parents. They say they'd like to give separated parents "the chance to come to a private arrangement" or failing that, all those single parents - you know, the ones that aren't getting anything for their children - to PAY to use the CSA. Yes that's right...pay to use the service which has FAILED to collect £3.5 billion owed. But just to hoodwink you into thinking you're getting a new service they'll rebrand it the CMS (wonder how much that's costing?).

Here's a revolutionary thought...the parents that are on friendly enough terms to agree a private arrangement have got a private arrangement already. Which harebrained, ignorant, idiot sat and looked at it and went "I know...we'll just get them to agree it between themselves"...no matter that some of them may have escaped just about with their limbs in place or endured years of control freak behaviour from the non-resident parent.

WHAT A JOKE!!!!

It used to be with the jurisdiction of the courts, because the only language these non-resident parents actually understand is "the bailiffs are going to be sent in" or "you will be going to prison.. if you don't adequately contribute to your children's upkeep."

Then the CSA came along and children suffered for it...now it's the CMS which is basically just the government's excuse to wash their hands of the whole debacle because which cash strapped, single parent can afford to pay for a service that fails to actually secure them any financial contribution towards their children???

Oh and the £3.5 billion is much lower than the figure would be had they actually made a maintenance decision on all those self employed fathers claiming they live on £600 a month whilst owning several companies...

DISCUSS PLEASE!

Child benefits and tax credits are the best way to ensure a child is resident, they shouldn't just reduce payments to children based on someone's word. Your situation way not have been resolved as smoothly or as quickly as you would like, but to be honest if you have quite a convoluted family life, with different mothers claiming and children changing residence effecting a different mother' claim, then it is going to take a little while to gather all the proof and ensure things are done properly.

My csa experience was a good one.

XP was paying a set amount each week, decided between us, but never increased in ten yrs and way below what it should have been.

I contacted csa as I had no details for his whereabouts. They had contacted him 3 times, got no response, went through his wages and doubled my maintenance all within a month.

I know ot everyone can say the same though.
This was 2 years ago btw.

Basgetti we'd made the application for those which is when they removed her from the csa claim. So they knew that, but they take at least 6 weeks to process so we didn't have the money. Meaning we had about £1000 between us, which didn't cover rent and bills. I'll also add that since he's been deemed as not having to pay he's been trying to convince her to take something off him privately again but she won't so we've done what we can by using the money to get the kids clothes and school stuff.

Anyway I am going to stop commenting now. My experience was that because dsd 3 lives with her dad, not her mum, she didn't matter and was less important than his other 2.

I hope all your kids get the money they deserve if your ex is avoiding paying etc and that any nrps on here get fair treatment in the future.

2kids I had a goo experience to start too - they seemed very prepared to track him down despite all of his tempts to put them off and started off with the correct amount which was paid directly from his salary. A few months in though and he apparently left work due to stress (fault of CSA and me obviously!). His boss wrote to CSA and the Judge to confirm this. He claimed JSA for 6 months and only apparently stopped when I pointed out to CSA that his old company were still updating their webpages with him doing a slightly better job than before, having just flown him to NZ... He denied working for them but did say he had founded his own company and was self employed.
Apparently because he is not on his previous company's books no amount of photo's of him receiving awards or giving speeches under their company name or the fact he gives out his work email openly on the internet or the media blogs written by and about him which say he works for them in the promoted specialist role AS WELL as founding his own company don't make any difference! He is clearly living on below the minimum wage

I'm sure his fiancée thinks they have done very nicely out of it. I doubt very much she thinks about his child other than whether she poses a threat to her! Women never seem to think the same thing could happen to them. Although I bet she has records of his finances just in case! She'd be even more of an idiot not to!

Lion, thats unbelievable!!

What have csa said about all that proof that he is obviously working?

Just that as he is not on their PAYE that is all they can look at. They gave me a Deed of Variation but nothing came of it. They did insist I contact HMRC and report him for abusing the JSA, but again nothing came of that.
I've given up to be honest. This is why I have found the system so frustrating, as he is being being blatant online to rub it in my face having paid for advice on how to cover his tracks. He can afford to after all!
For me the hardest bit is what to say to DD when she grows up. I used to be able to put some in her savings account but now we can't afford to save at all.

Funnily enough I know I am very lucky - I own my own house and only have one child. I can scrape by.

But having this happen has massively opened my eyes to how easy it is for any NRP to do this. My ex isn't the brightest spark! His boss clearly advised him and is standing behind him to cover him, his fiancée thinks it is the right thing to do and even his parents aren't challenging him. Society things this is acceptable basically, and the law/system backs them up.

How bloody frustrating.
Doing it blatantly like that, its proof of his nastiness that his daughter may one day stumble upon herself, he must be stupid.

He really doesn't care about her, sadly. When he took us to Court to again try to get out of maintenance (with his then g.f to witness) he said he had no intention of seeing her until she was 18 when he could "be the cool dad" - it's all about him. I agree that she more than likely won't think his deception and lack of contact make him 'cool' or possibly anyone she might want to get to know

Sorry for all of the typos - had a huge flood in the house this morning (thankfully now under control - wonderful builders!) and am about to go and see a possible school for DD - been a hectic morning and an interesting 6am wake up call!!!

I don't want to be crass as I know that this is a sensitive subject for many of you but I just wanted to ask:

My husband and I went through a rough patch 2 years ago and he moved out for a bit. We worked it out in the end and all is well now (that hes learned to do things my way ). At no point though was there any concern about money or the CSA though. We got married and decided together to have 2 children together.

I just wonder, with a lot of people here, how many of you who are fighting the CSA had that kind of background? Are these mostly from short relationships or were many of you married?

I ask only because now I'm starting to wonder how secure I really was. Or was I being naive?

Lion - you said your ex is engaged now. Were you married to him? Did he want to be a father and did you plan the child and life with him before conception? Or is the fact that it was unplanned the reason why he is being so horrible to his child?

None of my business of course. Just ignore me if you don't want to answer Just trying to work out whether I should be keeping copies of the accounts and whether all men can 'change' like this

We're on the other side with a very spiteful and vindictive RP. We pay £800 maintenance every month - we've offered time and time to do it directly (provide payslips as evidence etc) but she has refused and chooses to do it via CSA.

Undoubtedely she will want to cost us as much as possibke and use the new service- surely we won't have to pay 20% extra because she wants to be a bitch

Some interesting posts (and the usual horror stories) on this thread. One thing I'd ask though: Should it be the govenrment's responsibility to track down and extract money from NRPs? If the govenrmtnet is to provide such a service, shouldn't those who use it pay for it?

Clearly some people will need help, and the govenrment should make data available with regards income/earnings tax codes etc. but I think we need to properly consider what, as a society, we want the state to do for us. The more people that can make their own arrangements, the more resourse there is to crack the toughr nuts.

Absolutely in favour of heavier sanctions for NRPs (who don't play fairly) by the way.

Child maintenance avoidance is surely more important to our society than tax or benefit fraud which central government funds?

Children need food, a roof over their heads.... There are many studies which explain how poverty affects life outcomes. Children should not be punished because their parents are not together.

My DSS has been told by his mother after he rang my Dh when he turned 18 that he wasn't to contact him again or lose his RP! I'm sorry but some women will do anything to hurt EXP even at the expense of their own child! I do understand this is minority though and most women want the best for their children it's just important to understand you can be a t**t wether your a man or women.

pleasedontspread you make an interesting point I can only say I feel totally secure that if anything was to happen with my DH I know he would do everything he can for our child as I've seen the lengths he has gone to for his first child! Not all NRP are feckless I'm also not some crazy women covering up for him letting him off his obligations and saying everything is ok I gave supported him to spend thousands in court fees to see his child. There is a theme on this thread that women are either hapless victims or scheming new partners wanting to screw over children. Not all cases are like this just because yours is don't make out it's everyone. I would like to say though I have the greatest of respect for women who raise their child alone it must be hell especially if the NRP doesn't help. My point is though that many NRP do care and that is not represented enough on this thread.

what I will say is that I am a NRP, who pays CSA, has a court order stating that my children have over night stays with me, csa asked me how many and I told them, sent them a copy of the court order, csa had to confirm this with RP, then soon after overnight contact stopped because csa were going to reduce the amount of money. hmmm, go figure????

I have much respect for RP that work hard, I have much disrespect of NRP that avoid paying, the main crux of my views is that a lot (not all) RP use child as a means of battering ex's and a tool to obtain all the money they can get at the expense of their children.

I could live with paying a fee if the CSA's collection rates improved significantly, so the pay-off was worth it.

The problem is that they're not making any provision for improving the service. The initial fee is simply a way of discouraging RPs from using it, especially those with low expectations of getting anything out of it. If the hard cases give up and go away, the CSA will cost less and its statistics will look better.

It's cynical political game-playing - they're not even pretending to act in the interests of the children.

malice in answer to your q about who should pay for chasing non payers - i do believe the cheapest and easiest way is the csa taking money out of wages. The government have all paye access that we dont have...if he/she is a wage earner, they pay, simple.

If a parent is so unreasonable that they try to get out of it, then surely this is the easiest way to get them to pay.

Malice the problem is, the majority of men do not want to pay for their children once they have divorced.

That is why the CSA was set up in the first place.

That is why even though it's been around for a good quarter of a century, the majority of parents with care still don't receive a penny in maintenance.

In the old days, people just shrugged and said it didn't matter, it was the women's fault for not managing to keep their man.

If the government is not responsible for insisting that men pay the debts they owe to their children, then that's the situation we will go back to.

Which of course, would suit the Tories just fine. The only reason they set up the CSA in the first place, was not because they were outraged by men not paying; it was because the majority of single parents at the time had to claim benefits as a result of not being able to work and not having maintenance. Now that most single parents are actually in paid employment, they don't need to worry about maintenance anymore.

I agree with you 2kids I think the common theme for the persistent non payers is that a number of them are business owners or self-employed.

I'm in favour of other sanctions such as removing passports, driving licences, etc.

Couldn't agree more Lisa - RP has kept nights (when she actually allowed access) below the threshold for a reduction.

Been to court and she ignores the court order.

I think it's utterly bonkers that CM is means-tested. Which food shop is it that varies their prices according to each person's income? Which energy company lowers the cost of heating or hot water when a customer is on minimum wage? Which landlord lowers the rent because a parent has lost their job?

A child has to be housed, clothed and fed regardless of income. If you earn more then you get extra stuff, or save it, or get better quality stuff; you don't wander into a shop to buy food and they say it'll cost more because you can afford it!

The Gov should calculate a mean cost of providing at least the basics for any child - that includes rent, bills etc - and half of that's the minimum amount per child which should be paid; both parents share the cost of perpetuating their genes. The children don't lose daddy's genes just because he can't be arsed any more, do they?

If parents stay together, then they are each paying one way or another (OK, cocklodgers etc excepted, but the CMS wouldn't be being used in those circumstances anyway). Why are NRPs exempt from this? It is just stupid, favouring a group of people in this way, particularly as it is NOT seen as a commendable attitude.

(I do think that society does need to take a stronger line on it, but most people are at least a bit shocked/iffy about non-child-supporting NRP. Aren't they? Am I naive?)

Ive thought this for a long time and the more i hear the more i think it's what needs to happen but wont as it would need to be part of an overall drastic reform in benefits.

I think when every child is born and registered both parents should be automatically eligible to pay a set minimum amount directly from their wages or benefits into the account the Child Benefit gets paid into.

The Govt is capable of working out a figure everyone need to exist on JSA or income support or minimum wage and even child benefit so i think it's entirely possible to work out a national minimum amount required to raise a child weekly and then divide it by 2 making each parent responsible for half. This amount could be increased accordingly when either parent earns above a certain amount.

Taken like a PAYE would remove the need for CSA (or CMS) and would also remove the idea that children were one or other parent's responsibility. Both parents would be paying it from birth whether together or not.

I also think it should be a set amount per child and not reduceable (is that a word) if you have more children or take on step children. I think this would have a dramatic impact on the thought people put into having second families or blending families if they know they wont be able to reduce their support to their existing children.

If you have £100 a week and two children costing £30 (example) a week you will think twice about having more if you know it will be £15 per child and you wont get an increase in wages/benefits.

As i said- it would involve massive reforms in the tax and benefit system but i do think there is a fairer way to do this if only the people in power would invest in it.

Jux
The reason it's done as a percentage of income is so that the child's lifestyle represents that of the parents.
If the NRP is a useless twat who doesn't work and has no income then the contribute very little in CM. If that parent was still living with the child their income would be nothing so the child would have a poor standard of living.
Some people can't really afford to have children when they're together let alone when they've separated and have 2 households to run.
How would you get the NRP to pay their half when they have no income?

NRP hiding their incomes/not paying is a different point from
Those NRP who have no income.

I suspect that quite a high percentage in the latter category contributed very little to their children when living with them so why would one expect any different once separated from them??