Changes to child maintenance system: looking for Mumsnetters' responses to a government consultation

[RowanMumsnet]

The government is considering some fairly major changes to the child maintenance regime (where money for child maintenance is exchanged between parents who have separated), and is asking for the public to give its views on the proposals.

If you're a separated parent who currently uses statutory agencies (such as the CSA/Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission) to arrange financial matters with your ex-partner, these changes could have a significant impact on you - so now's your chance to have your say.

Proposed changes include:

1. A strong emphasis on getting separated parents to make independent arrangements (or 'family-based arrangements') without using statutory agencies. Parents will be strongly encouraged to make their own arranegements, with the help of non-governmental organisations such as Relate, mediation services and so on.
2. For cases in which parents can't come to an independent agreement, there will be a new statutory agency (the Child Maintenance Service) to replace the CSA.
3. Fees will be charged to parents who use the Collection Service aspect of the Child Maintenance Service (ie, in cases where the non-resident parent fails to pay voluntarily and promptly). The non-resident parent will be charged an extra 20% on top of the sum of child maintenance s/he is paying; the parent with care will be charged an extra 7%. The government says: 'We are actively seeking views on the detail of how charging and case closure should operate in practice, and strongly encourage interested parties to submit their views on this. However, we are not consulting on the principle of charging itself as this has already been consulted on extensively.'
4. Fees will not be payable by victims of domestic violence, or by parents who are under 18.
5. Cases that are currently handled by the CSA will gradually be transferred to the new regime.

Further details on these and other changes are available in the consultation document, and further details on how to respond to the consultation are given on this page.

The consultation closes on October 26 2012.

Do please let the government know what you think, either by responding directly to the consultation or by posting on this thread.

Thanks,
MNHQ

So you have just proved the point that NADM has been making all along. Sometimes it is simply not feasible or financially sensible for a parent to work, because of the family setup theyre in.

But her children are still financially supported by her household through the income of her partner (who she supports in earning - he'd struggle to afford childcare if she dropped dead). It may not be the same amount of support, or the amount you think they should have or whatever, but her household is still housing, feeding and clothing the children within it.

NADM, if I understand, they are not "split", you and ex agreed to take one benefit each, and you would have had to agree, and whichever parent is claiming CB, could simply claim the rest if that agreement fell through.

Optimistic - because of me (NRPP), DH's DCs benefit financially to a huge degree because his living standards are higher than they otherwise would be (yet he doesn't receive tax credits due to my income). So of course I'm therefore contributing towards the children

I think most SPs contribute to the SCs, just not in ways that suit NRPs.

Even when DHs ex should have been paying maint and wasnt, both DH and I spent substantial amounts of money on the non resident SC.

We clothed, fed, uniformed, (always had spare here due to high levels of contact), maintained a full seasons wardrobe, pocket money, mobile phone, spends on the weekends she was here.

But ex saw that as not paying maint (despite her being assessed as due to pay DH) because we werent handing it over to HER, giving her half of the money she spent on uniform, etc.

just not in ways that suit RPs (nothing like a one letter typo to change meaning of a sentence.

Agreed mummy

DH's would never ever allow a situation where DH had more access to the children, yet she fully expects him to pay her more towards them. Basically she wants to have her cake and eat it.

Your DP's tax credits are presumably working tax credits, not WRT a child. When, exactly, has your income been used in any calculations regarding his non-resident children or have you been told by an official body to provide these living standards for the children?

I didn't say NRPP's never contribute. I said there's no legal obligation for them to do so. As a couple, you could choose to live in a one bedroomed flat and spend your excess income on fancy meals out if you wanted to. It's great for your SDCs that you don't do that, but tax credits aren't going to tell you that your income should be supporting your partner's children. They do for the partners of PWC.

There are far more nrp who dont see their kids, so nrp and their partner do not spend 1p on the children, those nrpp could now have their income taken into account.

"have you been told by an official body to provide these living standards for the children?"

No of course not. Surprisingly, I do it willingly when i take off the evil sm mask

"As a couple, you could choose to live in a one bedroomed flat and spend your excess income on fancy meals out if you wanted to"

And so where would the DSSs sleep during access visits - on the floor/on the roof?

I dont think there are MrsJR, and also most of the NRPs I know, who don't see their kids, would love to and its not through their own choice.

I only know of 3 NRPs who don't have contact with their children out of choice, and 2 of those are women.

Are you being deliberately obtuse, allnew? There is a difference in the obligations placed on resident step-parents and non-resident step-parents. Is that so difficult to understand?

FFS.

And I am off to bed because it's DS2's first day of school tomorrow and I promised myself I'd go to bed early over an hour ago

"As a couple, you could choose to live in a one bedroomed flat and spend your excess income on fancy meals out if you wanted to"

But that equally applies to an RP and their partner??

Mummy, well thats what those nrp tell you!

Optimistic :

"The income of the NRP partner is not used in any financial calculations WRT the children."

What are these benefits the NRP can claim for their children who don't live with them? An NRP cannot claim ANY financial support for their non resident children. If the NRP became the RP and started claiming benefits for the children, the NRP's partner's income would be taken into account.

No, its not what they tell me, I use the evidence of my own eyes/ears.

I have been through the mill enough to be able to smell bullshit when I come across it, there are no fuckwit fathers in my social circle, because I have made a deliberate choice not to have them there.

I believe firmly in NRPs rights, as well as those of their children, and have made what have been difficult choices in the past regarding who I will/wont spend time with.

If you are going to actively promote the rights of a decent and good NRP to quality time with their child, then you have to be prepared to challenge those who are not decent and good.

Once and for all, when I talk about prison it is for those who are wither making no effort to support their DC's financially.

When talking about access on MN, the widely held view is that maintenance is separate from access, children aren't pay-per-view, and children should have access even when their NRP pays no maintenance. Which is as it should be.

But by the same token, so maintenance should not be refused because the level of access isn't at the level the NRP would like. More often than not, the access is set out by a court order, and the RP is sticking to the terms of that court order.

Any reduction in maintenance for access takes into account the AMOUNT of that access. So if the court ordered access is less than the NRP wants, and they have an RP that doesn't value a good relationship with their DC's NRP (there are some out there, though not among my friends), then a) They are liable for the amount of maintenance they should be paying based on their income and their access arrangements, and b) If they want the access arrangements changed and can't come to an agreement with their DC's RP, then they can take the RP to court.

NotaDisneyMum, I can see in your situation that your partner is trying to get a job.

IMO, yes, if you live somewhere that makes it that hard for him to get a job to financially support his DC's, then he should move to somewhere he CAN get a job. If you choose not to go with him, whatever the reasons (you cited that your DC's would lose out on contact with their NRP), then that is up to you, but continuing to live where you live is stopping your partner from getting a job and financially supporting his DC's. I DO see that as depriving his DC's of maintenance income - he is acting in YOUR DC's best interests, not his own. And why would moving stop him from seeing his DC's? Couldn't he drive to pick them up or

Sorry, excuse the smile - myoclonic seizure, pressed wrong buttons.

Couldn't he drive to pick them up, or catch a bus? If working would stop him from having access, then surely access days just need to be rearranged around his work hours. And even if the RP didn't agree, the courts would.

ChocHobNob, in that case they would then become the PWC partner.

I was referring to maintenance WRT NRP partners, as I made clear several times. I am not saying that NRP partners should have their income assessed. It just seems odd to me that a PWC can lose child tax credits, and soon child benefit, paid solely for the benefit of the children, based on the income of a step parent. Not only that, but should the situation arise that the PWC is employed and the partner is not, the PWC will not be able to claim tax credits for childcare because the partner is available to care for them. It was a passing comment that's all, that seems to have blown out of all proportion.

MoM, while I take your point that you choose your friends carefully, many NRP do say they want more contact when they don't. My XP says this, yet had unlimited contact when he lived locally and was offered similar when he moved away. He just chooses not to see them, because I won't do things exactly as he wants them. My FIL has had to put several people straight when they commented how unfair it was that XP "wasn't allowed" to see his children.

Mummyofmystery - if the CSA states that you should be paying the other parent maintenance, and you are using it at your house to buy stuff, you are NOT paying maintenance. Maintenance is paid to the RP, and the RP gets to decide what it's spent on, NOT the NRP or the NRP'sP.

Controlling much?!

You are trying to refuse maintenance based on how much you spend on the DC's at your house. Which means you are refusing your SDC's RP the choice of WHAT to spend maintenance on.

Maintenance is not something that the NRP gets to decide "oh, we want to buy uniform for our house, we won't pay maintenance so we can use that to pay for it, the RP should be happy we have done that, the DC's got uniform, haven't they?"

Which totally avoids the FACT that the RP gets to decide whether to use maintenance for uniform (and gets to choose that uniform, unless you buy uniform yourselves as the NRP/NRP'sP out of OTHER income), or for their electric bill, or for food shopping, or for a school trip, etc. etc.

I am aghast that some NRP's/NRPP's think that taking away maintenance from the RP, and therefore taking away the RP's choice on what the maintenance is spent on, is ok. It just highlights WHY RP's get sometimes, when faced with attitudes like that!!

couthy Drive? A bus?

Again, assumptions - ferries and planes might be more appropriate.

I am going to challenge one of your statistical claims though - it is the minority of arrangements that are made in court - for the majority, there is no CO in place.

couthy - I think you have misunderstood my posts - dhs ex should have been paying us - we had 1 resident and 1 non resident SC - I was making that point that in addition to the CSA monies she wasn't paying us, we were also spending a substantial amount of money on the non resident one.

Yet despite the fact she wasn't so much as cooking for her own child, and was shirking her assessed responsibilities - she still bleated on about not rec maint for the non resident one.

In theory we didn't have to buy anything for the non resident one - but our moral responsibilities were different to our legal ones.

CM by both our views DHs ex should be in jail, for not financially supporting her own child in your view and in mine for unreasonably withholding contact.

NotaDisneyMum - AH! . I see the problem if water is involved! On a practical note, as I have found when going for a NMW job, I have to rewrite my CV 'forgetting' to put my degree on there, to be in with a chance of getting the job. Maybe a bit of creative writing and amnesia might help your partner?

I HAVE found that it is hard to get an entry level job with higher quals on my CV, so I don't put them on there, and have got NMW jobs with a CV with gaps due to missing quals.

And to the other poster - I did get the wrong end of the stick, I apologise, it just sounded very like a situation I am trying to help one of my friends through at the moment (obviously playing on my mind!)

Why then is SHE not paying YOU maintenance? She should be. I hold no truck with NRP mothers not paying maintenance either, I'm not a man hater, I'm a maintenance-avoiding NRP hater!!

My mother never paid maintenance to my father when he was my sole carer, so I went through this as the child in that situation as well as having been through it for 12 years as a parent too.

The reason I get so pissed off with NRP's not taking A job, ANY job is because my DD's father became a SAHP for years and lived off his wife's income, refusing to get a job etc, never saw DD, no cards, presents, nothing, until DD was 12. We then got back in contact, he started seeing DD, but it still took another year to start getting maintenance from him.

I saw him being a SAHP as depriving my DD of income. I was working my butt off, despite DD having Autism, despite losing my career through my epilepsy diagnosis, I went from a white collar, professional job to 60 hrs a week NMW shelf stacking to pay the bills, yet he was sitting on his arse doing nothing to support her. Yeah, that burnt, I was a disabled parent looking after a disabled DC yet managed to work at A job, ANY job, to support my DC's. WTF was his excuse?!

So yes, I might seem a bit biased, but given what I have been through as a child and as a parent, given what I have had to help my friends with, it's hardly surprising.

I have come across so many NRP's who try to find ways out of paying the maintenance they should be to support their DC's, and in many different ways. Maybe me and 90% of my friends that I have helped with the CSA have just had bad experiences, but my experiences are that very few NRP's, even my own mother, do everything they MORALLY should.

So that WILL colour my judgement.