Can we legally get infomation from college

[WkdSM]

My youngest SS failed his AS levels last year and the college have allowed him to repeat the year. He was 18 at the beginning of this year.
The college are saying that they can't pass any infomation to DH (his father) without SS's permission. I presume this is because he is now over 18, as they did co-operate before and pass us information on his grades and issues arising.

ExW will not give us any information and SS is ignoring texts and messages now.

We are paying around £900 a month via the CSA, but according to other family members and postings on social media sites, SS sees his mother once a fortnight and lives with his girlfriends parents.

Where do we go from here - if the college refuse to provide confirmation he is or is not still in full time education, how do we find out what the true position is?

We have no issue paying if he is still at college a but we obviously don't want to pay if he is not at college and not living with his mother.

Thanks

So presumably your dh has lost all direct contact with his son? Is the son on facebook?

Does his father really begrudge paying maintenance till the end of the academic year?

Presumably they 'begrudge' paying money to someone who is not, in fact, taking care of the child, RedHelenB, something I imagine would be fairly common?

But his son still needs paying for regardless.

RedHelenB - So they should continue paying to the mother even if she is not looking after the son and spending all the maintenance on herself?

The OP says, "We have no issue paying if he is still at college a but we obviously don't want to pay if he is not at college and not living with his mother." Sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

Just to clarify - DH and I have never had an issue paying maintenance - when I was working and he was made redundant we did not ask for payments to be reassessed but continued paying so that the SSs were not impacted by his redundancy.
We had an argument with SS last year because he wanted £4k towards car insurance when he had not even applied for a provisional license - long story. DH does text his etc but SS is now choosing to ignore these. He lived with us for 3 years and then returned to his mother to do his A levels.

He is on facebook but tends to get agressive and say things on there he might not say otherwise.

The issue we have is that he does not appear to be living with his mother or actually achieving anything at college - we have already asked the CSA if we could make the payments to SS or partially to family he appears to be living with but they said this would have to be in addition to the £900 a month we already pay.

Just wanted to ask where we stand with getting info or asking CSA to confirm the position.
We are not shirkers or bad people - we have a wonderful relationship with older SS and are continuing to support him through uni.

RedHelen did you miss or deliberately ignore this bit of the OP:

"We have no issue paying if he is still at college"

Do you send money off to the CSA each month (rather than have them deduct it directly from wages)? If it's the former, then I'd be tempted to stop paying if the situation is unclear - then in order for the payments to be resumed, either the ex or the CSA would need to obtain proof that he's still enrolled at college? I don't think anyone can be expected to make payments when the facts are unclear.

If you have any contact with the mother it may be worth talking to her first. She is required by law to tell the CSA if your SS has left full time education or she is no longer receiving child benefit for him. And if she is receiving child benefit but he is not living with her or he is no longer going to college she may be guilty of benefits fraud.

If that gets you nowhere the only option I can see is to tell the CSA that you believe your SS is no longer in full time education and is not living with the mother and that she is therefore no longer entitled to child benefit or child maintenance. Ask them to investigate. Any evidence you can provide to show that he is living elsewhere and not going to college would obviously help.