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

Couthmow whether you choose to believe it or not, there ARE Pwc who choose to use the CSA even when they are getting consistent payments in line with or even exceeding what they would get through CSA.

DH's ex did EXACTLY this, and the payments reduced by £30 per month. Actually he ended up having to pay arrears for the time between the date of application and the date of assessment, even though he'd been paying full voluntary parents during that time. She LIED to the CSA and said he'd paid nothing. She got an extra £1k for this lie, although the CSA regular payments were £20 lower than he'd been voluntarily paying for a year.

She did it specifically after an argument. She had no reason to punish hi
, it was actually her who left him and had an affair. She uses the CSA to this day as a punishment and control mechanism. If she's pissed off (and she can get pissed off by something as simple as FH breathing in the wrong direction) she calls them, they call him. Actually they are very efficient in her case, because DH is an "easy target" consistent payer

Couthymow, I think the mistake you're making is to assume that a bitter person who hates their partner will make logical decisions

So its the governments fault your low income friend is struggling financially, and the blame lies due to the csa alone taking the MINIMUM, okkkkaaayyyy.

So its all the fault of the other posters evil ex who went ti the csa for the legal minimum, oh what a nasty rp, fancy them wanting to make their childs life easier by getting the MINIMUM from the csa, frin mr poor and mr angry, the previous posters tell us about this is why the
csa is needed and those are samples of why nrp go self employed and the sort if codependants who justify defrauding children from Minimum child maintenance, please look at self employed nrp who have partners like previous posters who feel Mr Poor or Mr Angry shouldnt pay child mauntenance, these people cant see how poor the rp is, its all about the nrp they care about.

All new - that's my point, in the case of your partner's ex, it was stupidity/greed. Using the CSA makes no real difference to your partner right now other than paying LESS. Meaning he has more money to spend on his DC's. Yes, she was daft, and there ARE others out there like that, but if it doesn't increase the payments then what's the trouble?

£80 is just more than 25% of his £300, so either he has 3 children who he never has overnight, or he is paying arrears as part of his maintenance. I'm not sure how either of that is the fault of the CSA?

I agree with Couthy. There is nothing to be gained by a spiteful ex going to the CSA, it may well be the justification in a minority of cases but I fail to see why NRPs are so bothered about it.

All new - then your partner was daft too. Anyone sensible gets maintenance paid into a bank account by standing order MARKED as maintenance. To protect my ex from that, when we went to maintenance direct, I insisted on giving HIM receipts written and signed by me. Now it's done by SO, MARKED as maintenance, and the CSA won't be able to chase him for arrears even if I do go back to them.

Which even given the charges, is inevitable because my ex will stop paying of I get into a new relationship.

"if it doesn't increase the payments then what's the trouble?"

Well for one she is wasting government resources . If they spent their time and effort chasing the non-payers I think that would be better for example.

For another it is simply not nice to be receiving calls/letters basically trying to get more money out of you on a regular basis. Dealing with the csa is stressful, even for a compliant nrp. They do not always get things right, they make mistakes. Who wants to deal with all this hassle needlessly? That's the trouble. Simply through an ex's spite.

"There is nothing to be gained by a spiteful ex going to the CSA"

Some people just like pissing other people off. Especially people they hate.

Oh yes, he was daft to not have had the foresight that someone (the mother of his children) would have the SPITE and GREED and NASTINESS to LIE to a government department and GET AWAY WITH IT.

He knows better now of course

"fancy them wanting to make their childs life easier by getting the MINIMUM from the csa"

how exactly did it make the childrens' lives easier? Genuinely baffled.

Also, the CSA need to stop including the Disability element of CTC as part of the maintenance calculation. By all means use the CTC, it IS part of the household income, as will Universal Credit be, but if the NRP's new household includes a DC with a disability, FGS protect the disability element of the CTC, because that is a payment to help cover the costs of having a disabled DC!

I see THAT bit of the calculation as robbing a disabled child to pay maintenance for a healthy child. It's just plain WRONG.

"By all means use the CTC, it IS part of the household income, as will Universal Credit be"

And so should cm be part of a pwc household income as part of their tax credit calculation

See I don't think CTC should be counted at all, although working tax credit should be. I do think the the reduction for step children in the NRP's household should be removed though, and only bio or adopted children included.

CM is too unreliable (statistically, not in all cases obviously) to be used in benefit calculations I thought?

OptimisticPessimist - I have to say, the arrears CAN be the fault of the CSA, quite easily. If they take 6 months, a year, or in some cases 5 years to do an assessment, the payments are backdated to the date the RP got in touch with the CSA.

So the NRP could end up with 6 months, a year or 5 years worth of arrears. A SENSIBLE NRP will look at the online calculator, find out roughly what their payments will be, and put that aside in a separate bank account until the CSA request the back pay.

It's cases like that where the CSA can and does land the NRP with a massive debt. But there is the sensible measure outlined above in this post that the NRP can do to protect them self from that.

Agreed it is a logistical nightmare, but taking tax credits from one family (when their tax credits ignore that a significant portion of the income is not theirs to spend but being handed to another family), and further awarding pwc family by ignoring that extra income in a tax credit calculation is very very wrong.

Csa should not be taking dla as household income.

Allnew you are genuinley baffled how a childs life will be easier if the rp gets child maintenance for them, WOW!

If you'd actually read my posts you would see that DH was paying regular and consistent voluntary payments before his ex went to the csa. So yes, I'm baffled as to how that benefitted the children, absolutely

It's not being handed to another family though is it? The children are part of the NRP's family. I don't get to reduce my declared income by taking off everything I spend on my children either

So the NRP's household income, would that be assessed for TC's before or after the payment of Maintenance?

If it is included in the RP's calculation, then are you wanting it EXCLUDED from the NRP's calculation?

The reason that was stopped, all new, is NOT down to decent partners like yours, but to those wankstains that have an assessment but don't pay regularly, or don't pay at all, and it used to leave a LOT of RP's in the shit financially.

I should know - it was MY case with DD's father that was the test case for the law in this!

Because there had been an assessment for £50 a week for her, £40 of my benefits (either Income Support, JSA, or Tax Credits) were reduced. Until she was 12, I received NOTHING. So I was losing £40 a week, every week, leaving me struggling to support my DD.

THAT is why the laws on that were changed - as I was far from the only person it was happening to.

But your declared income for tax credit purposes (if you get them) does exclude any cm you receive for your children.

CouthyMow

I suppose yes if I could be guaranteed to receive it every week without fail then yes.

Bearing in mind the NRP has 2 options. He can pay me the £5 per week every week without fail through a maintenance direct arragement. This is still under the juridstiction of the CSA just paying me direct, so in the event he stops paying arrears are built. He pays £5 I receive £5.
Or he can choose not to pay and prat around. I can do nothing about it or I can go to the CSA and ask them to collect it. He then pays £6 and I receive £4.65. Thats better than the nothing option.

Thats why I said im happy to pay if the CSA improves their service and get better at dealing with regular payments from NRP thats mess around and the charges are only incurred when the payment is handed over.

no your one post quoting me did not have that information in it, the additional infirmation you now supply and claim was in your quoted reply, was actually information in a previous post and you are now backtracking your claim of genuine bafflement ti how more monet will make a childs life easier. I like others dont remember every detail of every posters life.

Yes, why is there a reduction for a child in the NRP's household that should be supported financially by THEIR other parent, not the RP's DC's other parent.

Bio DC's, all well and good.

Oh, and the reason CTC is counted as income? The 178,000 NRP's that became SAHP in their new families and claimed that they had no income. Blame them for that!

Money = happy child

So if the NRP isn't working Couthy, can the whole family's tax credits be used as income for CSA? I didn't realise that, I thought it was only if the NRP was the main income. That would be really helpful to me if it was the case, given XP's propensity for being a lazy arse who lives off his wife