School Uniform

[loosebutton]

Hi my DH pays the CMS amount to his ex for the DSC, he is of the understanding that this is it. That's all he has to pay. Anything else extra is on top, so he pays for half their music lessons and the school trips. I'm asking because his ex has asked him for half the school uniform money for the last few years. He paid half when the eldest went up to secondary school but he said at the time this was a one off and he couldn't do it every year. Anyway he's received a stream of angry messages about it this year and a demand for money. Is he right? The CMS is it and uniform costs are factored into their calculation? Is there anywhere that tells you officially how they've worked it out?

cms does tell you exactly what it covers but uniform can be really expensive so a contribution isn’t unreasonable but I don’t think it can be demanded where does it tell you this please?

@Narcheska I think that is the problem, they should write a list of what basic living costs are.

Oh ffs.

Yes this is the way forward and what we had assumed CMS had done but seems we were wrong

Like others have said, CMS isnt based on anything to do with actual costs of raising a child

Something else interesting... It really is a minimum. When the levels were set by government they were part of a number of changes to lower the legal costs of enforcement in relation to child maintenance payments. So the levels were set low to encourage compliance and result in less enforcement costs. It was fully expected that many father's would pay above and beyond. Alongside this were other measures such as government not interfering in agreements made in private arrangements and not reducing benefits to mother. This was to partly offset those who are getting quite low payments from fathers.

Sorry I meant to say it doenst tell you. It’s designed to be a % if the income to cover basic needs like food housing and clothing but clothing means all general clothing and school uniform. Both of which can be expensive (I’m lucky the only branded school item we need is jumpers which are £20 each otherwise it’s just supermarket uniform) so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to ask especially if the uniform of expensive but also when we had the same contact as you I just paid for it because it was predominantly used on my time. I’m remarried now with 2 more children and my DH ( ds1 stepdad) agrees with me uniform on our time is our cost so it just comes out of our family pot.

Yes this is the situation. I think some people just see CMS and see red. It is the tool that he and his ex thought would be best to calculate a "fair" payment but it seems it is not exactly clear what it is it is designed to cover. DH had assumed it was what it costs to pay for half of the child's needs with their mother but mum has assumed it doesn't cover school uniform. It seems it is not as clever a method of working things out as they had thought as it is simply based on income. I can totally get why if its set to like £30 per child or something like that it isn't enough. But that is not the case here.

@Narcheska Thank you yes that is what we'd been looking for but we're barking up the wrong tree it seems. We'll start looking for templates to help calculate how much each child actually costs.

How many kids and how much does he pay per month in £? It's not a difficult question.

So the levels were set low to encourage compliance and result in less enforcement costs. ahhh this makes total sense. CMS is shit then!

Most places say it is to cover food, housing and clothing (which would include uniform as they have that for the majority of the year).

2 with his ex 1 with me and I'm not saying because whatever I say I'll get stick thrown at me. He is a high earner so people will either say OMG you're quibbling over uniform when she gets that much! Or he should be paying 50% of his income if he earns that much. It is irrelevant. It is a high amount.

We want to compare it to what is "enough" so are going with the work out what it costs method.

@loosebutton how much is the uniform? Typically for ds1 I was buying
3x school jumpers = £60
2 packs of trousers (2 pairs per back) = £22
2 packets of polo shirts (2 shirts per pack) = £15
pe kit £20 in total for shirts and shorts
school shoes = £15 (supermarket ones but Clark’s would be closer to £50 per pair)
pe daps = £10

So my crap maths reckons that’s £142 and that would do DS1 for at least half the school year (he grows fast 🤦🏻‍♀️) so not unreasonable for me to cover alone but if there is lots of branded uniform or
It’s secondary which tends to be more expensive i wouldn’t think asking for a contribution would be awful. Depends how often you have to buy it too.

my secondary blazers were branded and that was about £60 per blazer and I needed at least 2 so it depends on lots of factors really

I think it's pretty straight forward. If maintenance is on the high side, say £600+, mum should pay for it fully. If it's £500 or less, it would be fair for dad to contribute.

Then there is of course the issue of what is being bought. Designer shoes, coats and 4 + shirt and trousers, Vs Asda bought with 2 lots of each.

Thank you. This is helpful. It's expensive uniform as mum wanted them to go to the "posh" school

The amount set by CMS really is the bare minimum he should pay. My ex pays £100 a month more than what is calculated, and pays for anything our DS needs on top of that - school uniform, clothes, days out, toys, books. The reason being - well why wouldn’t he? He is financially quite comfortable - as is your DH by the sounds of it. And he sees the value in what I do - raising our DS. He saw his own DM struggle as a single parent - it isn’t just about the money. It’s the mental load that comes from raising children by yourself. If your DH earns as much as you are implying, why are you bothered if he pays for school uniform?

This. He should pay half the uniform costs. Secondary uniform is very expensive and needs to be regularly updated, especially for boys. Additionally it often changes as they go up in the school. Eg change of colour or style of the jumper or shirt, adding in a blazer etc.

Good. Too right she wanted them to go to the posh school. Their dad is a high earner. He could possibly afford to send them privately.

That isn't a dig!!! There are too schools the "posh" school (the kids words) and the non posh one. They've gone to the posh one. Nothing wrong with that!

It's expensive uniform as mum wanted them to go to the "posh" school

Bloody hell OP. You are not doing yourself any favours here

Yes! I haven't said it was the wrong choice have I! Private was an option but mum has chosen the posh non private one. Her choice and probably the choice I would have made too.

CMS is calculated for everything no where does it state things are missed out or need to be taking into account separately.

Uniform is expensive however, we halved it one year ex paid all for SS we paid all for SD then she got on her high horse about what we had bought but the next years we said make sure you're accounting for uniform in your money because come august we aren't giving anything extra