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!

Were you naive Lion?

I value the point of this thread, and I really hope that we get somewhere with the CSA as my DC and I could certainly use an easier life than my exH gives us. That's honestly for the sake of my DC though.

Someone else on this thread earlier asked whether 'these men' are the result of long-term relationships/marriage, or if they were mostly short term-relationships/accidents. I have a lot of anger towards my exH, but we have a long history and I think I've earned a bit of anger towards him.

I would like this thread to talk constructively about how we can FIX this problem (so I can get school uniform money for one thing) but you're taking up most of the thread raging against your ex who you don't see but seem to know a lot of details about. Is this for the good of your DC or because this man is off somewhere else and happier for it? Like the comment earlier asked - have you earned this anger? Did you and your ex plan your DC together, or was he some short-term boyfriend who 'got away'from you and now needs to suffer and never be happy again?

I for one have an exH who asked for 2 children and is now working through a mid-life crisis poorly. I'd like to get the anger out of this thread and return to talking about how we can fix things as best we can

Thank you

Lion the reason the csa said dh didn't need to Pay that week is he had NO income, which if you follow the rationale behind using % to calculate maintenance is the correct conclusion.

If the parents weren't separated the father had no income that week therefore wouldn't have contributed that week. It's no different.

It's academic because dh chose to pay.

With regards to what can be done.

1. Surely the NRP who choose not to pay, must at some point apply for credit/mortgages etc there needs to be a link up in the system whereby if they declare no income for maintenance then it bites them on the bum when they want credit.

2. Also I don't think taking on step children should reduce liability towards biological children. In theory maintenance should be received into the family for those step children so they shouldn't in theory be a burden for whom a discount should be made.

"Surely we do need to take some responsibility for our judgements."

How does that relate to the issue of men choosing to financially abuse their children and the government supporting them to do so?

Quite apart from the fact that many men simply start behaving differently when they get divorced. Many self righteous, smug women like you have been left reeling with disbelief after they've split with husbands they would simply never have predicted would behave the way the financial abusers do.

VintageCabbagePatchDoll I'm sorry you feel I have merely been "raging" at my ex - I thought I had made it clear that I have given up pursing him and was sharing my story to show how easy it is for some parents to get away with nothing. There are loopholes which I thought I was highlighting for posters who haven't been through the system. I don't see how the length of our relationship changes his responsibility to his daughter, however.

I'll bow out now as I don't want to take up the thread if it isn't being helpful in understanding how the system is currently being abused and why it needs to change (but not necessarily in the way proposed).

I get £20 a month from my daughter's father. He is violent and abusive and I can't even contemplate contacting him to set up an "amicable" agreement when I've just spent 2 years trying to remove him from our lives.
I wrote this post about it: www.singlemotherahoy.com/2014/05/dear-csa-you-stink.html
I'm really angry that these changes have been brought in; it seems an awful lot like punishment for being a single mother.

Please can posters stop asking about each other's personal circumstances and judging whether someone is worthy to complain about the maintenance they get based on the length of their relationship with their ex partner? It's not relevant and it's bitchy and exactly the sort of behaviour that doesn't get us anywhere. As women, we have quite enough stacked against us in society without turning against each other. It takes two people to make a baby, that's two people who have equal responsibility for contraception and bringing up a child. There are some myth busting statistics here. www.gingerbread.org.uk/content/365/Statistics
As it happens, around half of single parent families had their children within marriage. Which means that half didn't. We come from all walks of life. Let's get back to how we can change this system so children don't suffer and the RP gets the right financial support to bring them up.

Well said bubbles.

"If they are going to charge for their service, I sincerely hope they will start providing a service worth charging for. A service where, if you're entitled to a maintenance payment, you get it or they chase the person to the ends of the Earth to get it."

Based on what I've read, it seems like the same service but paid for.

I don't think the CSA Is a service" as such . It should be considered an automatic civil duty in the same way that paying tax is. That way every man knows from the off that having children will incur a cost. Paying for children isn't a penalty, it's just what you do.

I'm not here to give my opinion, but I am here to give out some FACTS. The media, and pretty much everything that has publicly posted about the changes either haven't fully done their research or haven't posted the full story. As usual they haven't given the full picture, and I'm here to post some of the truths regarding this change.

1. The laws have not yet come into place, but are planned to, at some point during this year.

2. Parents will not have to pay an application fee if they make their application before the fees come into place.

3. There are 4 options to arrange child maintenance:
   Family Based Arrangement - Free (Private agreement)
   Direct Pay - Will incur application fee in future, wont incur the 4%/20% charge in future. (CMS)
   Collect and Pay - Will incur application fee, and fees for collecting/paying out child maintenance in the future. (CMS)
   Consent Order - agreement through the courts instead, will obviously incur fees.

4. Everything except from a Family Based Arrangement is legally enforceable if payments are missed.

5. People who have suffered from domestic violence can avoid the charges by going through Direct Pay, where you can set up a bank account with a non-geographic sort code, and the CMS will pass on these bank details to the other parent on your behalf (so no actual direct contact needed).

6. Arrears will not be "wiped clean". You should receive a letter through the post regarding this when you get notified about your case closures. Arrears will be transferred to the CMS when your case does, you will however receive a letter that may ask you if you want to clear the arrears (DO NOT SIGN THIS).

7. Although Direct Pay requires some contact, unless in cases of domestic violence (only to set up the payments, can be indirect contact, don't need to negotiate amount) - they do the calculation for you, send it out to both parents -, it is still legally enforceable and set up through the Child Maintenance Service. Both parents will be notified that there will be charges if paying parent doesn't pay, so it's going to be in his/her interest to pay up as they will be paying 20% on top of the maintenance if they don't, plus will be facing enforcement charges for deduction of earnings ect. Quite an incentive to pay up imo...

8. When charges come into place, legislation will change regarding the rules of applying to the 2 different schemes (Direct Pay/Collect + Pay). At the moment if 1 parent doesn't want to do Direct Pay, the paying parent has no other option but to pay through the Collect and Pay scheme. If the paying parent has shown that they have paid on time, every time through that scheme, when the charges come into place, the paying parent will have the option to apply for Direct Pay in order to avoid the upcoming charges, as they have proven their willingness to pay (will obviously be switched back to Collect + Pay if there are any problems), and the receiving parent will have no other option than to try Direct Pay (and also avoid their 4% reduction).

9. Direct Pay doesn't require any direct contact. You only need to set up a payment method - which could be easily done through a friend/family, text, email, telephone call, or letter. Once again, using Direct Pay won't incur charges.

If you want any confirmation on this information feel free to give the Child Maintenance Service a call.

More information about the Options/charges on www.cmoptions.org

Yeah the problem with that is that most domestic violence isn't logged.

The average woman is attacked over 30 times before she calls the police.

If she got divorced after attack number 28, that's not going to be on file.

So she'll be charged.

I can't say if they are going to work alongside police (this seems like a lot of hassle) - and I imagine they are just going to take the DV victim's word for it as they wont want to get into any dodgy law suits about this. But is something that I will ring up and check about tomorrow.

Also, the main issue is your number 2:

2. Parents will not have to pay an application fee if they make their application before the fees come into place.

IE once the fees come into place, the person who is being financially abused, will be charged to challenge that abuse.

It doesn't apply to me. I've already got the CSA on my case (much use it does me). But my gripe is not that I'm going to be charged (I'm not), it's about the principle that charging the victim of abuse instead of the abuser, is immoral, sexist (because 90% of RP's are women) and unfair.

Which is exactly what I would expect a Tory government. They have form on this. The war on single parents has recommenced.

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?

where on earth do you get off asking questions like that? what on earth has it got to do with children who need supporting? It is this kind of prejudice that we face every day. Victim blaming by the back door. We must be somehow to blame for being single parents whose exs don't support their children because we didnt' know them very well/weren't married/were too young to be in a committed relationship/have no qualifications/live on benefits/live on council estates/scream and swear at our children/refuse to get a job/dare to have nice nails/dare to go on holiday/dare to own a car...../...../....../ In fact, if we dare to have anything or any kind of life that mirrors that of decent, hard-working, married parents, we are automatically assumed to be getting all our money from our poor, long-suffering ex husbands/people we tricked into getting pregnants....

If you had a genuine interest in the lives of women who have posted here, you would have actually read the posts and realised that by far the majority are educated, were married, and had no reason whatsoever to believe when married that their now ex would be the kind of man who evaded child maintenance. But it's more fun poking at us, isn't it?

My OP wasn't here to give an opinion, but I'll give mine now.

My job involves talking to a lot of these people.

Yes, there are unfortunate cases where the person who is being financially abused will have to pay a 1-off application fee. Whether or not that £20 is a lot to that person, I couldn't possibly comment on. (But surely £20 is affordable for a service where you gain child maintenance for the upkeep of your children).

But on the other hand, a lot of paying parents are being held at gun-point by receiving parents despite willingness to pay, either because they're greedy or because they want to punish the other parent (which they could do, 20% vs 4%?) - which is the scenario I see a lot more. Paying parents paying what the calculator says is the reasonable contribution, and sometimes more, but the receiving parent taking them to CSA/new service just because they think it's their right to be able to use the service and want to make life difficult for the other parent. Adding charges may/will deter awkward receiving parents from financially abusing the other parent too.

Regarding the 4%, I can see both sides to this argument.

On one side, the 4% is for the children, and taking the money off the children isn't something that sits 100% right with me.

On the other side, if there was only charges for paying parents, more receiving parents would just go for the option that charges the paying parents because well hey! Why not! They wont have to bother with contacting them or anything, so why try and set up the payments with the other parent? The 20% doesn't concern the receiving parent.

In some cases I understand that there is just no other option. But in a lot of cases, some parents CAN do it between themselves, they just want to screw the other parent over...which isn't what the service is intended for. It's meant to be for people who CAN'T make an agreement (disputes, domestic violence). Not for people who can and just choose not to.

Pandachu, 3/5 of lone parents with care and control, get no maintenance at all.

3/5. The majority.

That's not because they're widows, it's because the fathers of their children are choosing not to pay.

That means that the majority of lone parents, are not able to negotiate maintenance with the fathers of their children.

And the government deals with it by charging them and taking money from their children.

3/5.

How may RP's are financially abusing NRP's? What is the definition of financial abuse of NRP's?

Pandachu I'm sorry, how have you been seeing these scenarios if the laws have not yet come into place?
And how do you know that the RP is going through the CSA to punish the NRP? Maybe, the RP knows the NRP is lying about his income and therefore any poxy amount he chooses to pay willingly is deemed inappropriate.
I should add that the calculation as it stands is a miserable amount to bring up children even if they paid it.
I posted some facts a few pages back too. I said that it is stated that arrears will be transferred but according to gingerbread not enforced? There's no point transferring arrears if no one is going to enforce them is there? Have you heard differently?

Paying parents paying what the calculator says is the reasonable contribution

I didnt realise the calculator had an option for working out the reasonable contribution. I've only ever seen it calculate a minimum contribution. There is a difference.

YBASB Exactly! My ex practically rubbed his hands with glee when he found the online calculator. He actually rang me up to gloat that he'd done the calculation using the CSA calculator on his -massively manipulated- self employed income and he owed me £8 per child per week.
This is someone who owns several properties...
The calculator helps them be abusive!

Yes! When we first broke up exp and i came to a private agreement for maintenance that was more than the CSA minimum. On the occasion he decided not to pay (he had cars and engagement rings to buy) and i asked when to expect something from him he would snap back "you get more than you should be getting most months so stop complaining" he genuinely thought that paying more than the minimum was more than the DCs were entitled to.

That should say occasions plural. There were many. So CSA was my final option. That apparently was a "sleekid" move.

The CSA set maintenance at poverty levels, which suits many RP's who don't mind if their DC's live in poverty if they're not living with them. Even if they themselves live comfortably.

It is an appalling new law which I've campaigned against as much as I could like many of you posting here. My two get £5/wk despite the fact that ex lives in a house with a swimming pool, has a yacht, second home in france , drives a Porsche etc etc. CSA been worse then useless but appealing against - won tribunal 3 years ago and no doubt will win again but they don't enforce it. fear nothing will change. any advice gratefully received!

Pandachu, 3/5 of lone parents with care and control, get no maintenance at all.

And how many of these parents decide they don't want maintenance? They may be already happy with shared care/other arrangements that don't include money, or may just want to, and have the resources to "go it solo".

How may RP's are financially abusing NRP's? What is the definition of financial abuse of NRP's?

I would say threatening to take someone to the new service so they get a 20% charge could be classed as financial abuse?

Pandachu I'm sorry, how have you been seeing these scenarios if the laws have not yet come into place?

Like I mentioned with my job - these charges have been proposed for about a year now I think.

And how do you know that the RP is going through the CSA to punish the NRP? Maybe, the RP knows the NRP is lying about his income and therefore any poxy amount he chooses to pay willingly is deemed inappropriate.

The parents that I've seen post on here seem like lovely people who just want the best for their children, but some of the people that I've spoken to aren't interested in that, and are unfortunately only interested in making the other parent's life a misery.

I should add that the calculation as it stands is a miserable amount to bring up children even if they paid it.

Whilst the amount calculated can come out as a lower amount than what some parents feel is a reasonable amount towards their upbringing (which more often than not it is, don't get me wrong), it is based on a % of their income, and if it's declared properly, comes out at a reasonable contribution (based on their wages - not on what the child needs ofc). They do have a responsibility to pay for the upkeep of their child but they do also have other responsibilities to pay for, as everyone does ofc (morgage/rent, bills, food, travel) and if they do have the kids overnight/for days ect they do need to provide for them then, too. There is most likely some leeway where they could contribute a little more than the calculator suggests they do -especially with high earners-, but making them unable to pay their bills ect would be a bit much, no?

Regarding the arrears, this is also something I got told differently - I personally got told by the CMS when I asked them that they would enforce the arrears. Unless ofc the person I spoke to was misinformed. But the whole idea of transferring arrears over ... but not actually enforcing them is absolutely ridiculous and something I would definitely petition if it was the case :S Parents shouldn't be let off that easily for not paying.

Also don't get me wrong, I'm not here to bash or insult anyone here, I've actually been reading this site at work and recommend it to my customers as it is an awesome tool for single mums, a great community. I did however want to clarify some things for you guys though as the facts seem to be getting lost with the media posting everywhere, and possibly bring along an opinion that is a little more reflective of both sides that will be affected here.

I'm going to go off now, but I hope I've helped some people know a little bit more about the changes, I did notice some of the people on here saying that they've phoned the CSA - dont! They're absolutely useless, they know very little to nothing about their current cases nevermind the new scheme. Getting through to, and then actually getting a straight answer from any of them is impossible - their IVR alone takes a good half an hour just to navigate.

The new service is actually a lot easier to access and is already 10x more organised than what the CSA was. Either give them a call about these charges (go through to their general enquiries line), or give child maintenance options a call - also another useful organisation I found useful to ring up, but be careful as they apparently don't have any case info, and only give out general info but useful nontheless.

Actually, just kind of re-thought something which is bugging me.

Would be a much better charging system if it charged only the person unwilling to do things amicably.

If the RP was to decline a Direct Pay arrangement, then surely the CMS should then charge the RP. (Obviously including the CMS intervention rule with domestic violence where they will pass on non-geographic sort code bank accounts and wont require any contact between parents)

And if the RP tries Direct pay, but the paying parent then refuses to pay, they should get the 20% charge and allow the RP to still receive the full amount of maintenance - no reason to shoot the person who attempted to try, right? And still charging the person who's at fault - and therefore forcing both parents to use the service.