Charging for CSA (sorry, bit of a anti-govt rant)

[sunshineandbooks]

Link here

So the CSA are going to charge users (i.e. overwhelmingly women) £100 for the privilege of using a service that offers no guarantee of actually securing any money for them.

Maria Miller, Families Minister, says: "Statistics show that one in five children from a broken home loses touch with a parent within three years". She then says ""We know that if effective financial arrangements are in place, those parents are much more likely to stay in contact and much more likely to have a strong relationship with their children."

Er, does she not realise that charging PWCs to use the CSA will result in more separated families not having "effective financial arrangements" in place? So that'll be more fathers less likely to "have a strong relationship with their children" then.

And to then say that the Govt want to overhaul access arrangements to make it easier for men! A quick look on the lone parents forum will show that loads of men use access as a stick to beat their ex's with, and yet quite often this follows years of messing about with access, letting children down at the last moment, and when a woman tries to formalise arrangements to improve things she's accused of being obstructive. Strangely, there seems to be a big crossover between men who can't be arsed to pay maintenance and those who see their children sporadically yet moan about restricted access.

Oh and tax credits for childcare are being slashed by 10% but this is yet again the PWC's problem, even though she is providing 100% childcare for the other partner. I was even more dismayed to read this thread in lone parents, where a lot of women seem to feel actually it is the mother's responsibility and the father shouldn't pay.

So let me get this straight then Maria - As a mother, everything is my fault and my responsibility. The father, however, can bugger off without a care in the world, pay no maintenance and turn up when he feels like it, knowing that these privileges are now going to be further reinforced in law.

Oh and before any of the anti-feminist types leap on this thread in an attempt to derail it, yes I am aware that not all PWCs are women and not all absent parents are men, but let's face it, the vast majority are. I am also aware that there are a lot of decent fathers out there. They are not what this thread is about.

Do the Govt really hate women that much?

SOrry for the rant. I am more than because I feel so impotent, but after reading the depression thread I am trying to channel it more effectively.

Yes the government really does hate women that much.

Thanks for the replies. I am amazed at the lack of press coverage about this. More worrying than the Govt attitude toward women is the public's willingness to go along with it.

this seemed to me like ones of those things where the policymakers have muddled up causation and correlation.

?We know that the most effective and enduring arrangements are ones that parents come to themselves.? (Maria Miller in DM) - surely because if you're the sort of couple that is capable of sorting out the money you are more likely to also be able to keep the relationship going; if you can't sort it out there's probably a reason for that, like one partner is an arse, rather than because making your own arrangement causes everything to be wonderful

how are they going to ensure that the arrangements people come to themselves are reasonable? Won't more women and children end up in poverty as a result?

"We know that if effective financial arrangements are in place, those parents are much more likely to stay in contact and much more likely to have a strong relationship with their children." - talking about cause and correlation as you were saying seth, surely these people would be more likely to stay in contact with their children anyway. I am hoping that's the reason anyway, rather than a rather more sinister one of the children have been "bought" so they feel entitled to see them IYSWIM.

I don't know if this is active hatred of women as much as complete and utter indifference to the problems that can occur when relationships break down.

All the guff about effective financial arrangements and greater chances of the non-res parent staying in touch is bullshit. That's not the real motivation at all, that's just a thin, cynical veneer of "We're doing this for the kiddies!!!" to make it play better to the Daily Mail readership.

This is all about money. The CSA costs a lot of money to run and they want to cut the bill. That's it. Of course, the CSA is so expensive is because they're trying to enforce woefully thought-through legislation and the actual organisation itself is utterly dire.

But trying to fix the legal and organisational issues of the CSA will be hard. It's a lot easier to simply dissuade people from using it by charging. And then, in five years time when the case-load has dropped enormously, they'll declare that the CSA is no longer needed and axe it entirely.

They simply don't care about the effects this will have on poor single parents or the real problems of non-res parents not paying. No fucker in the government would go within 100yards of a poor person unless it's for a photo opportunity. No fucker in the government gives a damn about the real effects this will have on single parent families.

Can't argue with that snorbs.

When they first started they used to charge for the "service". A friend applied for Tax credits years ago when it was called Family Supplement (or similar) and they wrote to her ex, who was paying over their rates by direct debit every month to say they were going to assess him and then charge him for the privilege.

He objected on the grounds that neither he nor his ex wanted or needed their service and that he was paying more than their assesment which they knew because it was on his wife's forms and she has supplied bank statements.

Had to get the MP involved in the end, was part of a big campaign that stopped them doing this - and then they try and reintroduce it. Not cost effective nor will it help PWC or NRP of either gender.

Guess who was in power at the time I'm talking about?