CSA admit ‘administrative error’
May 13, 2008
The CSA admit in this video, added to YouTube, that they made an administrative error by sending a variations form meant for one guy, to a different address. The outcome was a DEO set up for the wrong amount, a staggering £550.
This amount was far more than the father should have been paying, over £200 more, meaning he couldn’t afford to pay his mortgage.
Marvel as the inept CSA worker squirms at the errors they have made.
Parents living abroad escape CSA
May 5, 2008
According to research by the Conservatives, more than 6,200 non-resident parents are living abroad, and only a quarter of them are paying through the child support agency. This means that around 5,000 parents are escaping paying for their children, with a total debt of over £26,000,000.
The research says that parents living outside the UK are getting away without paying far more than parents living in the country.
Figures also reveal that the CSA are currently owed £3.7 Billion, which represents an increase of £200 Million from the previous year, and an increase of £1.4 Billion since the year 2000.
The CSA say that less than half of the money they are owed is actually recoverable, meaning they have written off over £2 Billion. The money ‘owed’ to the CSA is increasing at approximately £16 Million each month, almost £200 Million every year. This money is owed by a staggering 137,700 uncleared cases.
You can read the CSA Quarterly Statistics here.
The new CSA scheme has a worse set of results than the previous scheme. Of this new scheme, only 65% of cases actually pay where 72% paid through the old system. Mistakes are rife as well with only 85% of calculations are deemed accurate. The old system saw 92% of maintenance calculations deemed accurate.
The worse thing of all is that the CSA costs over £500 Million per year to run, which is twice what it cost in 1997.
Chris Grayling, the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions said:
It is now 11 years since this Government first promised to get to grips with the CSA and each year that goes by it seems that more and more families get caught up in a system that’s just not working. The Government has promised great plans for reform but the families that have experienced problems in the last few years will remain sceptical.
DWP wants to spend more of our money on IT
May 3, 2008
As if the child support agency hadn’t cost the UK taxpayer enough money, the Department for Work and Pensions wants to increase the amount of money spent on their IT systems.
They want to significantly increase the amount of money spent on them over the next two years.
The DWP has a total amount of £1.9 Billion budgeted on their IT projects between now and 2010. The CSA were responsible for throwing away £233 million of that money. Yours and my money.
The DWP has already completed IT upgrades on the Jobcentreplus CRM system, online pensions forecast system, HR and financial system improvements, state pension system, benefits debt recovery and they replaced the legacy benefits systems.
It is the CSA however that is costing the government the most money as they have severe IT problems with their system.
The CSA stated in November that it intended to make huge IT upgrades to its EDS CS2 system (which cost £450 million originally) as well as telecoms enhancements, costing a further £320 million.
The £450 million EDS system had 500 separate faults, which were discovered three years after it had been built.
Our money is in safe hands eh?
£13.9 million owed to CSA in Wearside and East Durham
April 24, 2008
A staggering 5,100 non residents parents across the Wearside and East Durham area owe the child support agency £13.9 million in child maintenance.
A spokesman for the child support agency, Richard Percy, who is a legal enforcement manager, said:
This is about children who are not being provided for.
The CSA’s focus on enforcement and its determination to use the powers available to recover the debt owed.
Unfortunately, there are some parents who go to great lengths to avoid paying what they owe for their children and this is unacceptable.
Children are being brought up at a disadvantage and are not going to have the same comforts as their friends whose parents do accept their responsibilities and who do provide for them.
They will not have as many luxuries such as treats, clothes and holidays.
Of course he fails to mention all of the non resident parents who are being charged too much or have had to quit their jobs because they can’t afford to work. He also mentioned how the CSA profits from the money raised. He also doesn’t mention all of the parents who have agreements to pay between themselves, but because the CSA aren’t getting their cut; they class them as not having paid.
Richard Percy went on to say:
It’s important to remember that this isn’t about securing money for the CSA, but about recovering money for those children who are owed it.
Yeah right mate, not about securing money for CSA. Sure thing pal.
This debt isn’t going to go away.
We are not denying that in the past the agency has not always delivered the service expected of it but If non resident parents think they can ignore their responsibilities and that we are never going to get in touch they are wrong.
Not always delivered the service expected? That’s an understatement.
If non resident parents have problems or are struggling to pay, they cannot ignore it, they should get in touch with the agency as soon as possible to discuss their situation and how they will pay the money back.
They have tried getting in touch. They have all tried getting in touch. It doesn’t work. You threaten them with bailiffs, court summons, deduction of earnings orders etc.
It is making non-resident parents realise they must pay for their children. The message is that if you don’t pay the agency, the agency is going to do something about it.
Ah, yes. Right on cue. The threats.
We will use all the enforcement powers at our disposal to recover the debt that is owed to children.
It doesn’t go to the children though does it? These people live in their own special world where they’re always in the right. You cannot appeal to the CSA because it is all dealt with internally. Only by exposing them publicly can you raise awareness of their injustices.
Oxford woman recieves CSA information for someone else
April 21, 2008
An Oxford woman, Emma Kelly, has received confidential information for nine other people from Oxford County Court. The information includes NHS records, information on court orders and naturally, CSA information.
Mrs Kelly is particularly concerned at the fact that the page she has been sent is marked at ‘page 3 of 4′. Where have the other 3 pages been sent?
The court has classed the mistake as an ‘administrative error’… where have we heard that before?
You would have thought that after losing the details of 25,000,000 people last year, they’d be a little bit more careful with confidential data.
The HMCS said in a statement:
HMCS takes this matter extremely seriously and constantly reviews all processes to ensure the safe transfer of data throughout its systems.
The data concerned was sent following an administrative error. Processes have been tightened to prevent this incident happening again.
Father sent to prison over CSA, despite ex-wife’s protests
April 16, 2008
A loving father who both provided for, and cared for his children while his ex-wife worked, was sent to prison because of the child support agency, despite the children’s mother protesting saying she wouldn’t be able to work if he wasn’t there to look after the kids.
Michael Cox is 43 and a barrister.
The parents had an arrangement worked out between them, the father provided for the children whenever they needed anything. He shared custody of the children. Everyone was happy, except for the CSA, as they weren’t getting their cut.
This a tale of horrific management on behalf of the child support agency as they’ve broken up a unit that was working and sent the father of three children to prison, when he had done nothing wrong. None of the family asked for, nor wanted the ‘help’ or interference of the CSA. The CSA of course had other ideas.
The DWP (Department for Work and Pensions) responded with a typically standard statement that showed no understanding of the circumstances whatsoever:
We always give non-resident parents every opportunity to comply with their responsibilities, but will take enforcement action where necessary. We will continue to reform the system of child maintenance to ensure that all parents fulfil their duty of care.
Michael Cox acts as a legal advisor for Fathers 4 Justice, who believe the CSA have victimised Michael because of his involvement in their organisation. Fathers 4 Justice’s Matt O’Connor said:
Prisons are bursting at the seams and yet here is a man that has been vindictively pursued by the CSA, to jail him on a matter of principle is scandalous.
He already looks after, feeds, clothes and provides a roof over their heads half the time. Why should he have to pay that money twice?
He’s treated as an absent father because of his gender.
This shows how the child support agency has completely lost the plot with regards to providing for children. How does taking a father of three and jailing him help the kids? They’ve lost their father and their mother is now unable to work because of the CSA, costing the country more money in terms of benefit for her and keeping the father in prison.
Well done CSA!
Via the BBC
CSA blunder almost splits up a family
April 13, 2008
The CSA are known for their blunders, but this one is exceptional even for them. They sent a letter to Andrew Ward claiming he owed money for a three year old child he had fathered, which resulted in his wife thinking he had cheated on her. She ordered him to pack his bags and leave the house, even though he had no idea what was going on.
When he realised he had been accused of sleeping with another woman and fathering a child three years prior, he knew it was a terrible error on behalf of the child support agency, as he had had a vasectomy eight years previously.
As it turned out they’d made an error with the national insurance numbers, and thus caused his wife to believe he had cheated on her.
Unbelievable.
You can watch the video interview from the BBC here.
Cynon Valley MP Ann Clwyd helps father with CSA complaint
April 11, 2008
John Hall, father of 3, was having trouble with the Child Support Agency when then insisted he was in arrears after he had arranged an agreement with the mother of his children. They upped his payments to £400 per month, forcing him into depression and to be laid off work.
It wasn’t until he went to his MP, Ann Clwyd, that he managed to get any results from the CSA’s convoluted and incompetent complaints procedure.
I followed the complaints procedure, spending hours and hours on the phone, but it was a waste of time.
After Ann Clwyd became involved with John’s case the CSA’s high level complaints department looked at the case and found that indeed John was correct, he was no in arrears and was paying too much. They awarded him a £2,000 cheque for his refund and lowered his payments.
This is a familiar story with the CSA, and sadly most cases aren’t brought the attention of any MPs. We’d advise you do this if you feel you’re having difficulty getting through to the child support agency.
You can read the full story here at IC Wales.
CSA use Adwords on broad match
April 9, 2008
We mentioned on Monday how the CSA are using Google’s Adwords to advertise their bounty hunting services in the UK. It’s actually worse than that as they’re using Adwords, but have the keyword ‘CSA’ on broad match with no negatives. This is an awful way to run a PPC campaign as they’ll be eating through budget very quickly.
You can see this by Googling ‘CSA’ and adding any other word with CSA, such as what we’ve done here, ‘CSA Complaints’. You can see that the standard CSA advert shows up, in position 1 every time. This means they’re bidding high and are appearing for any search that uses the letters CSA together.
What a waste of money, but then would you expect anything less from the child support agency?
In addition to using broad match with no negatives, they’re using their homepage as the landing page for every ad, and aren’t catering the ad in any way for the search. For example, if they had any sense (which of course they don’t) they’d have different ads and different landing pages to cater for different searches, such as a search for CSA Complaints could take you to the complaints procedure page on their website.
But that would require knowledge and intelligence, something blatantly lacking with the child support agency.
My CSA story, the CSA cover up
April 8, 2008
The CSA was ordered to close the case that they had going with me, and repay all of the money that I had paid through voluntary payments. After a new Appeal hearing they reopened the case and wanted all of the money that they had repaid me plus what had not been paid during the time that the case was closed. This is in the region of £18,000. During the time that the case was closed payments from a trust fund were made to the children’s mother for their upkeep some £16,000, the money that was paid back to me was taken by the Official Receiver as I was made bankrupt during the divorce, not uncommon! Thus the money that they had repaid me was gone. If the CSA had taken into account the money that was paid by the trust and tried to recover the money as they were advised so to do by the Official Receiver then there would be no arrears. On top of that they refuse to allow the money that I paid for housing costs for a period of 3 and a half years, this is now before the commission! The CSA would actually owe me somewhere between £10,000 to £12,000.
I just wounder how many parents with care would like to have had £16,000 on top of their benefit from the government!
At least the Legal Aid board wanted their money back.
The CSA put the case in the hands of the Criminal Compliance Team for all the good that this did, she got off with it scot free.
The system if fair, I think not. I am now fighting these people through the courts for all the good it will do, I have tried my MP but he is not really interested, but I will keep going and hopefully get justice!
Oh yes, I forgot they have also admitted liying in Court under oath, I heard somewhere that this is a criminal offence, but neither the police, the courts or the CSA will do anything about this, as it is and I quote “To difficult”. Just a compleat shambles and a cover up.
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