I thought I would put my side of the story on here as it seems to be mostly NRPs venting about the CSA getting their side of things wrong. I do both sympathise and empathise with everyone who has to deal with the administrative nightmare that is the CSA, but I also think that there are some NRPs that make getting maintenance payments virtually impossible.
Our situation is that my step child lives with us, and has no contact with his mother. This is for two reasons - one was the choice of my step child, the other was the complete lack of contact from the NRP. She seems to be under the impression that gives her the right not to pay, an attitude that I don't really understand as the last time I checked, it was not my responsibility to pay for someone else's child. Of course, this sounds very harsh and of course I am happy to do it as I have come to be the 'real' mother in this situation but frequently become unhappy when I think about what she is getting away with.
To publish the catalogue of problems we have had, both due to her unwillingness to cooperate and mistakes made by the CSA would take far too long, but I can safely say that although involving one's MP certainly speeds up certain processes, it does not resolve the situation if the NRP is using delaying tactics.
I really don't know what to do anymore. Our regular payment is base rate, and the arrears that she owes us, which amounts to somewhere in the region of £2,000 is being paid off at a rate of roughly £3 per month. You don't have to be a genius to work out that that will take a vast amount of time to clear. Luckily, we don't need the money, but we are entitled to it so I think the fact that we don't rely on it is entirely irrelevant; there may come a time when we do need that amount of money. If we were a credit card company, we'd be able to use the courts and solicitors to recover the debt. Unfortunately we don't have the time or resources to do that, coupled with the fact that this is supposed to be what the CSA can do, yet two years down the line, we are still waiting for a liability order to be granted.
I just wanted to let people know that PWCs cannot always 'do what they like' or 'get away with murder'. Sometimes it is those NRPs who have no emotional, physical or financial input that get off relatively unscathed. And if she was really that bothered about seeing her child, I'm sure she'd make some kind of effort.