Challenge the Proposed CSA changes

[ShirleyKnot]

Could we talk about having some sort of campaign to bring awareness (and hopefully some action) for the many thousands of lone parents who are receiving pitifully small sums of money, or nothing at all, from the NRP?

I have been reading about the proposed changes here and I'm HORRIFIED!

I was on a thread recently here where many posters shared their sad tales about feckless NRP being asked to pay pennies per day for their children - and still not receiving even these pathetic amounts.

It seems that the CSA is a fairly toothless beast.

On a personal level, I have recently claimed for my two children (14 and 11) after nearly 10 years of no financial (or any other!) support.

My X refused to answer any of the CSA letters requesting salary information. He is self employed and therefore impossible for the CSA to get access to his income (although they do ask the Inland Revenue for previous accounts - in my X's case he hasn't submitted returns). Eventually an order was placed on him for £40.00 / week. Should the Inland Revenue not now be investigating why he hasn't paid any tax in the last few years? Surely this should be automatic?

He has not paid. I contacted the CSA today to ask what was happening with my case and was informed that they can't start court proceedings until the arrears mount up to £500.00 or 13 weeks worth of non payment.

The point of this is that, I'm used to it! I scrape by on my wages and we're fine - but what if we weren't?

What if I needed that £40.00 to feed our children?

I'm hoping that others will come onto this thread with ideas of what form this campaign should take - and also to maybe confirm the vague feeling I have that lone parents are going to be asked to contribute towards the CSA's work via their maintenance payments. (I may have this wrong)

Let's try and change this shall we? Or at least make a stand?

moonlight I was under the impression they were going to stick 15-20% on top of the current amount.

Great, if my XP gets that he'll probably kick off again. We're lying low and I don't need anything to happen thay might piss him off.

15-20% on top of the amount of maintenance. So if someone pays £55 a week maintenance now, they will be paying between £8.25 and £11.00 a week extra (between £63.25 and £66.00 a week). However - the PWC (parent with care) will only receive between £3.85 and £6.60 less per week (between £51.15 and £48.40 a week).

There is a thread Here with the figures on.

Everyone I have spoken to in RL about this has said that they cannot see why the Government is going to basically charge the NRP for use of the CSA, then charge the PWC for use of the CSA, and then charge the children for use of the CSA...

(By taking money out of what they should be receiving, it is charging the children, no?)

I've signed the petition
If the government are going to increase the jsa to cover the amount the nrp is going to pay, then this is ridiculous, it's just moving the same money around in a different way.
The appalling service the csa give is not worth paying for

I get £5 a week for 2 children. Exh won't get a job as he'd have to pay back the thousands of arrears.
If I can't afford the £100 to get this measly amount then he's got off scot free again hasn't he

Petition signed and my full support behind this issue. The government can not be allowed to get away with this.

It actually makes me want to cry.

This scheme is designed to deter people from using the CSA.

Which means men can walk away without paying a penny.

I have used the CSA and currently receive zilch. They have been really ineffective and inefficient for me - can't really see myself coughing up money I don't get, to receive ......er zilch.

Blog here about this

And do pass on Shirley's excellent post about this, if you haven't already. Get this on to FB please

I just had a chat with someone at the CSA just now, speaking about a curent personal issue, and then I asked about the new system. One of the things she told me is that there is going to be pilot in one area next year . She said overall if parliament lets it through and the pilot is sucessfull it will be 2014 we will be invited to reclaim. She said they are trying to get it inland revenue linked, and if there is a disparacy between lifestyle and income claimed for NRP, to report, report, report.

I'll bet the pilot area is going to based on cases that are in Bolton CSA office. It has the highest amount of complaints of all the CSA offices, because it is run by a private firm whose name eludes me at the moment - Was frothing about this a few years ago - Which would mean that as my case is based there, I would be part of the pilot scheme.

It'd better blooming NOT be Bolton. I can't afford to pay that for both my cases, and I can't afford to lose money on my maintenance.

Our case will end August 2013, when dsd leaves college.

Do you think they would transfer us over or leave things as they are.

I honestly don't know why they have to mess around with cases like ours. DH was paying privately but when I fell pg with dd1, his ex went to csa and it's taken years to be able to get them to take the money regulary. DH got so annoyed that I had to become the rep.to speak on his behalf (and he is the most laid back person I know). They kept saying they couldn't pull a direct debit on his case ( I have no idea why as every other company we pay money to has no problem setting up a direct debit from our perfectly normal bank account). Then they would set it up, take money for a few months and then miss a payment, I would phone and then they would refuse a card payment as they said the dd was due, so we was in arrears, which they didn't see to want us to pay either when I phoned. Even though we haD several threatening letters. The whole thing went on for months, finally I suggested they just take it from dh's wages weekly which they now do (costs us a £1 a week for their incompetence).

And still last month I ha a phone call saying we was £400 in arrears, the case had been reviewed and the payment had gone down (but the figure they quoted me was exactly the same as what we are paying now) and could they set up a dd to take the money 'as a standing order isn't very reliable' aaahhhhhhh!!! [fanger] I explained through gritted teeth that we have never once payed by standing order and we are not in arrears due to the weekly payments from dh's wages. I gave her the name of the lady who resolved the issue for me last year and the dept she worked in. She said she would phone me back - she still hasn't.

If they start messing around with it again I may have a break down!

Hello all

Thanks for drawing our attention to this and really sorry it's taken us a while to get back to you.

We spoke to Gingerbread this morning to see how the land lies, because currently these proposals are being debated in the House of Lords as part of the scrutiny of the Welfare Reform Bill. The transcript is here if you want to have a look.

Interestingly, there's considerable cross-party opposition to the plan to charge parents with care to access the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission's services. Lord Mackay (Conservative peer) is proposing to table an amendment to drop this requirement if the parent can show that they have tried to come to a voluntary arrangement, and his amendment will be debated in January if the govt doesn't back down before then.

Also worth noting is the fact that the Work and Pensions Select Committee has recommended that the charging proposals be dropped; the govt had three months to respond and didn't do so, which might (or might not!) indicate that they're considering their position.

The govt is due to launch a consultation on these charges sometime before Christmas, and when that happens we'll be sure to link to it prominently via a sticky thread in Active Convos; we'll also feed through all your comments to the DWP.

Gingerbread are currently watching carefully to see how things pan out, and we've agreed to stay in close touch and also offered to help out as much as we can when they decide on next steps - we'll keep you updated on progress.

MNHQ

Thanks Kate, that's very interesting. There was a consultation period from January - April this year, so they must be having another one - not sure how these things normally work, so maybe having a second consultation further down the line is normal.

I certainly hope the government back down. I have no idea how I'd prove that I've tried to come to a voluntary arrangement, seeing as that was done in a phone call over five years ago where my ex told me he'd 'put a cheque in the post' which, surprisingly enough, never materialised. I then called him to see where it was only to be told he'd never put a cheque in the post in the first place as he didn't have any money and wouldn't be paying . I can hardly try to put a voluntary arrangement in place now because my ex moved and changed his phone numbers, so I have no way at all of contacting him .

I'll await any further news with interest.

Thanks for the update .

I'd be interested to know what counts as trying to come to a private agreement. XP was happy to pay when he was still seeing the kids and hurling abuse at us, as soon as I stopped it and arranged mediation and a contact centre he refused to pay. So I had to get the CSA involved. I hope police / WA involvement count, there should be records for that.

lots to scroll through on that link to the House of Lords - searching for "Clause 131 : Supporting maintenance agreements" should take you to the relevant section

I am very much in support of this campaign. I am not someone who has any experience of the CSA. I think it is important for people like me to support this campaign. The personal testimony of many many MNers has raised this as an issued with me.

Shirley it may be worth linking some threads together for Gingerbread to look at. First hand accounts can be very very powerful testimony when lobbying. (Learnt that at a feminism activism conference the other day - first hand testimony from former lap dancers was instrumental in tipping the balance so that lap dancing clubs are now licenses as sexual entertainment venues).

I would think that the Lords need to know how difficult it is when NRP is not disclosing their workplace/changing jobs and particularly the self employed thing.

some of them seem to get it: "These proposals exhibit profound misunderstanding of the dynamics of child maintenance, where there can often be considerable inequality of bargaining power between the parent with main care of the children, in need of financial support towards the cost she has-both directly in supporting the children and indirectly in wages foregone as a result of their care-and the non-resident parent who has the money, and who has to make the decision as to how much to contribute, at what intervals, or indeed whether to contribute at all. This is another instance of the unequal gender power relations that we have discussed on a number of times in this Committee."

Thanks for the update Kate.

I guess we just need to hope (and continue campaigning) that the HoL see sense.

Bookmarking so I don't forget to keep up.

That is good news Kate.

Just need to add what I have found about the changes in relation to benefits wrt Maintenance when UC replaces both IS, JSA and Tax Credits :

This. THIS. THE FUCKING FUCKING FUCKERS.

Some income,
such as maintenance payments from former partners (which are
particularly important for lone parents), currently does not count as
income for the purpose of tax credits. This income will be considered as
income under the system of Universal Credit, and therefore will reduce
entitlement pound-for-pound.

So if your Ex-partner pays you £55 a week maintenance now - you get to keep all of it. Even at the worst, you were allowed to keep £10, and then £20 of it. Now you will lose every penny PLUS have to pay the CSA a fee. WTactualF. And obviously, like the old CSA system, if your Ex-P is MEANT to pay £55 a week, but DOESN'T - YOU AS THE PWC WILL LOSE THAT £55 A WEEK PLUS THE CSA FEES.

I have registered domain name www.fecklessfathers.com

It might be a good time to get the website up and running so that we can name and shame these men.

Is that really the case Hunty? That's utterly shocking and means NRP can use the system to deprive PWC deliberately

hunty

Just read that.

FUCKERS.

I am so fucking scared about what is going to happen to us. Maintenance means we aren't fucking eating budget food and being too scared to turn the heating on. If that is wiped out then we are fucked beyond belief.

I simply don't know what MP's / Lords to write to next. I can't write to all of them but this fucking bill seems to be sailing through Westminster without anyone going mental about it.

I know it's extremely early...but have I read that right Hunty??

'And obviously, like the old CSA system, if your Ex-P is MEANT to pay £55 a week, but DOESN'T - YOU AS THE PWC WILL LOSE THAT £55 A WEEK PLUS THE CSA FEES.'

HTAF can you lose money you have never ever had????

I have never ever had a penny in maintenance from my XP [twat emoticon] yet apparently I will lose another £30 odd quid from my universal credit when the changes to universal credit take place, simply because he was calculated by the CSA as he is supposed to have paid that amount for the last 3 years????

I think I am confused or I need a lie down.

That can't be right can it? I must be reading it wrong??

If it is right, then every single parent who is on benefits and the CSA has been unsuccessful getting any money from the NRP for the DC is going to be fucked!!! Is that right??

Littlemiss, under Universal credit, if you receive maintenance you must declare it and that amount will be taken off your benefits eg £50 in maintenance so £50 less benefits.

The problems come when the NRP doesn't pay the maintenance yet the RP would still lose that amount in benefits.

You receive nothing in maintenance so nothing will be deducted from your benefits.

Thank you bytheMoonlight.

So, if I have never received maintenance, even though it is in the hands of the CSA, and they just haven't managed to squeeze a penny out of XP yet, and his arrears are building up, my universal credit wont be reduced by however much he is supposed to pay?

Whereas if I have been receiving maintenance, albeit sporadically, my universal credit will be reduced by however much maintenance I expect to receive, and if the NRP decides to stop paying, the RP is up shit creek without a paddle??

If this is the case, then I am afraid I am hoping that XP continues to refuse to pay...since I clearly cannot afford to rely on XP after he hasn't paid a penny through the CSA for years now.

It is beginning to look to me like the previous govt? encouraged RP's on benefit to push for maintenance from the NRP, believing it wouldn't affect their benefits, only to be punished for doing so when the universal credit comes in?