Frankly I deeply resent the implication that I was somehow trying to deceive! I have been very open on mn that I am a Lp on benefits, very easy to see from many of my posts.
As someone who is and was at that time disabled and mentally ill, I wasn't working and yes in receipt of benefits.
As I said before the RP's side being covered by benefits doesn't negate the nrp's responsibility.
At that time I received child benefit of £20 a week and child tax credits of £60 a week. But that shouldn't have been necessary.
I don't know what exs salary was at the time I don't have a note of that, but with all circumstances taken into account, including the 5 children he's fathered since we split, he was assessed as being supposed to pay £39 pw. He never paid regularly, consistently and often not the full amount even when he did pay.
When I first split from ex at that time the rules were that any maintenance received meant that benefits were reduced by the same amount. Due to people like my ex not paying with any consistency this led to children in poverty. I believe it was gingerbread that were the main organisation, though I think cab and shelter also lobbied, for this to be changed. It was a hellish situation because if a single parent family was on benefits, if the nrp was assessed as being supposed to pay eg £30 pw and then made a ONE OFF payment of £5 dwp and tax credits then ASSUMED that the remaining £25 would be paid, or had been paid and that the next month and the next month the nrp would pay and reduced payments accordingly. It was a shambles.
IF a uk govt committed to ensuring cm was paid in full and regularly then reducing benefit payments intended for support of a child/children to account for that would be fair and right.
As things stand we're nowhere near that situation, there's far too many loopholes, the cms isn't fit for purpose and nrps are not pursued - not even just not vigorously pursued but barely pursued at all unless RP's contact them frequently possibly getting MP's and hmrc income tax dept involved.
My ex was in the army at the time. I was able to give what was then the csa his name, dob, service number, personal and work address, email and telephone number. The army have very smooth procedures for dealing with contacting personnel and with doing attachments of earnings if it gets to that stage. Csa didn't even bother writing to him for almost a year! They then let him not reply to them for almost another year. It was at this point my hv recommended going to my local gingerbread group (not specifically for this but for general support) and I learnt there that this was very common (garrison town, lot of ex army wives there) and it was they that told me to contact my MP to get things moving, which I did. After over 2 years of being fobbed off by csa, within 6 months I had my first payment. I was overjoyed at the time as I thought that meant it was sorted - oh no! Ex played the system very well. Always making a nominal payment JUST at the point when csa were threatening an attachment of earnings, which they then each time took to mean he was complying, but he'd then not pay for next few months and the whole thing just went on like that in a cycle - for 14 YEARS!! At the end when csa became cms I finally was assigned a senior case worker who reviewed the full case and arranged an attachment of earnings which meant I received correct payments for the last 5 months (out of 14 YEARS) of the time when I was eligible to go via cms. Dd then left school and started work so ex no longer has to pay maintenance and the fact he owes thousands is now just written off! 😡😡😡
Xenia - not all of us are in a position to be self reliant. I couldn't have predicted the car crash that left me disabled and ramped up my mental illness through the roof! Plus there are millions of full time working Lp working in low pay jobs who are needing to rely on the state to top up the low wages their billionaire bosses deign to pay them.