Sharing my open letter here in the hope it will spark further conversation and support for what I hope to achieve... the letter has been acknowledged by her PA.
Dear Baroness Hale,
I write regarding the Child Maintenance Service and the recognised legal loopholes that enable HNW individuals to financially neglect their children.
I left my ex when our twins were just 5 months and have been supported by Womens Aid and the Police through a challenging climate of emotional abuse ever since; financial control continues and is perpetuated and sanctioned by the CMS. The impact on our children, me, my husband and younger children is excruciating and unacceptable.
Despite his wealth (multiple millions) the Child Maintenance Service assess maintenance obligations based on a declared salary of zero and additional unearned income £32,696. My ex currently pays less then £100 a week for our children and has made it clear I should only expect that to decrease.
I am battling systems that are failing my children and I wonder if there is anything you could do?
Here is a press release I wrote on the sorry situation with the support of leading London Law Firm Vardags;
Mandatory reconsiderations are the gateway to Child Maintenance reviews - an agency working to government KPIs to reject four out of five appeals, which is the final insult to mothers battling a system that legally entitles wealthy absent parents to absolve themselves of financial contributions towards their children.
When the Child Support Agency became the Child Maintenance Agency it ceased to look at assets or wealth outside of salary, therefore, individuals paid via dividends or from international income streams are outside of its jurisdiction. For frustrated mothers the fact that such transparent 'income modification' is legally sanctioned is as distressing as the pressure left on them to cope financially and there is a recognised need for change.
Leading London law firm Vardags note that;
‘The CMS is a blunt instrument, at best difficult to navigate, at worst, impenetrable. Five different pieces of dense legislation and regulations set out the pathway to child maintenance, administrated by a computerised system, which does not adapt to nuanced personal circumstances.
In this global age where “super earners” are increasingly ingenious in the ways in which they manage their finances and hold their assets, the CMS offers a woefully unsophisticated system that continues to fail the most vulnerable, leaving a significant band of children penalised due to the disparity of wealth between their parents. These are not parents who are impoverished, quite the opposite. These are parents who are able to arrange their wealth to fall outside of the unyielding CMS criteria, circumventing their responsibilities to their children. Some non-resident parents are manipulating the system by setting up business structures and income streams to defeat the stringent rules, because they are armed with the best legal advice money can buy and use the system’s inherent rigidity to their advantage. I believe that such action is morally reprehensible and needs to be met with a strong and easily accessible system that seeks to protect the child rather than the current series of loopholes available to the financially dominant party.
The decision to end the CMS’s ability to look behind the UK tax returns and to consider the global lifestyle of the paying parent has shut down the only avenue of attack which can be easily demonstrated and views a parent’s financial circumstances more broadly. Unless the paying parent earns an income in excess of £156,000, which leads to a maximum assessment by the CMS, the courts have no jurisdiction to intervene and take account of the wider picture of wealth. This is an area of law crying out for change; the system is being manipulated and, in many cases, is failing to protect those children it was set up to help.’
vardags.com/
Essentially mothers battling the system for child support from wealthy fathers who fund their lifestyles outside of salary are being told that their battle is with the moral fibre of their ex and not their exes finances.
Mothers questing for justice are at the mercy of UK law and things have gone from bad to worse since the Dickson V Rennie case led to Judges not applying Schedule 1 of the Children's Act until a tribunal hearing via the CMA has been reached and won; seemingly impossible to do when the CMA don't look at wealth outside of salary. In any case evidencing wealth to get to tribunal stage (either on or off salary) requires documents and financial data that would breach the wealthy parent's privacy.
The CMA and Schedule 1 of the Children's Act were intended to protect children yet wealth disparity and neglectful intent has left both wide open to corruption meaning these laws and institutions now serve the wealthy to allow legal abandonment of children.
Justice Holman, the Judge in the Dickson V Rennie case, called a mother’s plight to get proportionate financial support for her children via the law a ‘folly’.
I understand the law is changed either by case precedent or legislation; having asked my MP (Michelle Donelan) to put the recognised need for change to the House of Lords she was told that their would be no review as the current set up was deemed acceptable. Clearly the financial disparity between my ex and I and indeed all women in my position means we are not in a position to trail blaze change in a court room.
I just refuse to accept that this is the end - particularly in the current climate where increasingly toxic masculinity and patriarchy is being called out; surely when these two combine at the head of our legal system to disadvantage mothers and children now is the time for this situation to be put under the spotlight of morality and decency and changed?
I would welcome the opportunity to discuss this in more detail.
With kind regards,
[redacted]
This post was edited by MNHQ