A call for change for the Child Support Agency
I am writing this as a father that is at a loss with the way that families are viewed in this country. I am 28 years old and have a 5 year old daughter that I have contact with 3 weekends out of every 4 weekends. My Daughter has been on the at risk register due to neglect from her mother and lived with me on a full time basis for 3 months before social workers decided that everything was fine back with her mum and that my Daughter could be returned. Since that time, I sit and listen to my Daughter, every single weekend that I have her, asking to stay with me or at the very least get extra days with me. I have brought up this issue with my Daughter’s Mother but she is unwilling to accept that my Daughter even wants this to happen and as such is not allowing this to happen so far.
Since March 2010 I have been making monthly payments to the CSA after previously paying privately on a monthly basis. I am on a low income working as a telesales advisor and the maintenance payments are financially crippling me and my household. I walk away with £700 a month and am expected to pay nearly £200 in maintenance. I also travel 240 miles twice a week, on the weeks when I see my daughter, which costs an extra £40 a week. I then buy all of my Daughter’s clothes, food and toys for when she is with me. Where as the standard amount deducted from the NRP is between 15% and 25%, I actually end up paying over 65% of my total disposible income on my daughter and making sure that I can spend time with her. I then have to pay my rent and all other associated bills on top of this. This is not sustainable. Is it the case that the CSA want to make it so financially difficult on a father that eventually he just gives up seeing his children so that he can simply survive? If this is the case then this is a shocking state of affairs! I would like to ask who loves their father? Who loves their brother? Who loves their son? I am sure the answer to this question will be we all do. Then if that is the answer when did dad’s become a non essential part of family life. It is more economical for a woman to live as a single mother than to live in a stable married couple. This is simply wrong! My suggestion is to change the way the CSA is run and administered.
It is very clear that the CSA targets the good fathers that are out there. It would be far more beneficial on the children by targeting the fathers that take nothing to do with their kids than the one’s who’s hearts break every sunday when they are forced to say goodbye. You imagine watching the person you love the most in the world die every single weekend and that is the empty, hollow and depressing feeling that every good father that sees his kids has to deal with. If a father sees his children regularly, spends on the travel to collect his children and buys all essential items for the child when they are in their care, then unless the maintenance calculation comes to more than he already spends in maintaining the contact he should not have to pay any more. This also would act as an incentive to the Dads who take nothing to do with their children as there would be a financial incentive to do more to see their kids. I am not saying that everything has to be about the finances of the situation but money can be the biggest hindrance in maintaining contact.
If a father chooses not to have contact with his child, then they should be the ones that are forced to pay between 30% to 40% of his income on that child. This I believe is the way forward. A fairer system that does not punish mothers, only punishes the truly bad fathers and gives the children the best of both worlds. A mother who knows that the father will be spending time creating a life long bond with their child and a father being given the opportunity to be the only thing he really wants to be, A DAD!
I have already written to my local MP and will be starting a campaign to try to get the system changed. So far I have not had much luck but rest assured this cause is a social, economical and political issue that has massive conitations for the future of our society as a whole. I will not stop until I have met with and spoken to people with the power to implement change and allow our children to live happier more fulfilling lives with both parents as important as each other in the process.
I thank you for reading this story/rant from me and I hope that you will reply in comments to this as I would be very interested to see how much support is out there for an idea like this.
I would just like to stress again that I am not against single mothers, I am pro children and I’m sure that that is something that every single one of us parents tries to be.
Thank You
5 thoughts on “A call for change for the Child Support Agency”
Leave a Reply
I have been involved with the shambolic, not fit for purpose CSA for 11 years. I have paid maintenance and I do believe that parents should support their children financially.
However, it is for parents and parents alone to make financial arrangements for their children. Not a Politician, not an executive and not an incompetent, bonus seeking civil servant! These people are interfering in my private family life and thus ignoring my human rights!
The flawed CSA system and legislation is helping to breed hatred and making individuals dissassociate themselves with common decency. For example, I would normally be an upstanding, decent member of society. Where I would normally be compliant and embrace national and local issues. I no longer get involved and have become rebellious! Treat decent people like scum, and they begin to act like scum!
However, because of the diabolical system and the way I have been treated by these incompetent pen pushing amateurs and corrupt officials at tribunals, I have withdrawn any support for politicians, and councillors! I no longer have any sense of common decency, and why should I when I have been treated worse than a criminal and as if I am low life scum. I am not putting up with it!
I raised a child on my own. That child is now an adult, witha good education, a good job, and is a credit to society! How am I rewarded? I am treated like a criminal!
I have written and keep writing to our elected representatives, who choose to ignore my letters and pass them to the CSA to reply. That is a good democratic way to listen to the electorates concerns, isn’t it!
The truth is that they don’t like to hear it! I am not stopping until the shambles known as CSA is disbanded.
I am hoping that eventually there will be a succesful legal challenge and I will have all of the money stolen from me reutrned with interest and compensation. Then, I can make financial arrangements for my children. If, I won the lottery tomorrow, I would spend millions on bringing this shambles down!
I urge all involved with the CSA to question the legislation and the system. How can it be that £3.7 billion remains uncollected from those who do not pay and will never pay, and yet thie flawed system keeps coming back to those who do pay for more and more. That is called discrimination and proves that the legislation and system is flawed!
Personally I would like to see the Serious Fraud Office get involved, by raiding offices and seizing evidence, subsequently arresting those who have been acting outside of the law, by means of corruption and collusion. Then, and only then, will confidence and respect be restored to the public, with our elected representatives and the judiciary.
Lets’ see how they like it when they are criminalised!
Well said both of you. This why there is complete review of the CSA at this moment in time. Of course the review will just be a whitewash, with the current changes that have been made to the CSA, ie CMEC, coming into fruition. However the Government does say that all CSA cases will close and that parents who wish to continue to use the CSA or CMEC will have to reapply, and at a charge.
Currently the CSA is attacking all fathers where it thinks it can obtain money by fraud, theft and down right vicious attacks, using bailiffs etc, and even removing families from their homes just so it can say it’s recovered this money. The £3.7 billion that you say is outstanding John, is completely fictitious, as confirmed by the Auditor General in every year since the CSA was set up, and is just made up figures of thousands of cases where they have made so-called assessments, but where the fathers have already paid, and/or where the assessments made are completely fictitious, the father was on benefit, or in many cases where the father was paying maintenance directly for his children.
There is only one solution to the CSA and that is to shut it down and make it hand over all the billions that it has collected on the pretext of Child Support and ensure that this money is given to the children it was meant for. I believe it is time the children who should have received the money, and/or had it spent on them, should proceed with taking action to recover the money they are due from the CSA.
Come join us on CsaHellHelp on Facebook where you will find many more like minded fathers who have had enough of this inept and corrupt system.
The CSA are an absolute joke of an organisatin. I too have had to contact my local m.p with regards to the poor treatment me and more importantly my child have had to put up with. My ex decided 10 years ago to stop paying any money atall to his child and has pretty much been allowed to do so. He signs on benefits whilst working cash in hand jobs. Has resided at the same address the whole time yet they continue to tell me theres nothing they can do.
I telephoned them regularly over the years and would be assured he would be taking to court, they would get legal recognition to the debt he owes yet every time they “say” they are trying to take matters further they then come back and say sorry he is in reciept of benefits at the moment so we cant try to progress this case any further. They are encouraging bad fathers to be neglectful of their children as they learn fast there is a way they can get away with not taking financial responsibility for them. I also strongly agree that it is good fathers whom are punished as a result of the bad fathers not paying into the system , it makes my stomach flip and I feel physically sick when I sit down and think about it. Wrong – very wrong.
To date my ex is due my child £15,000 in debt for non payment, they say there is nothing they can do yet I say how exactly did it get to this state of affairs in the first place. THEY allowed this to happen and they have no remorse for this what so ever.
I would just like to thank everyone that has been adding their comments on the issue that I raised. I hope that this is the beginning of a change that can be for the benefit of all but I would love to see more comments especially from women so I can forward these onto my MP and higher up the food chain as well. I think that it is imperitive that this is not seen as a sexist issue or people just trying to get out of their responsibilities, this is about fairness pure and simple!
I will be starting a campaign to get the change to happen with the Government and the more people that can support me and the idea of a better way forward then the stronger the voice will be for change. A change that is better for Men, Women and Children!
Thank you once again and look forward to reading more comments
Chris Wilson
After reading what you have said i am a single parent with 2 boys with different fathers so i have 2 cases with the csa and have to say that in my experiance my ex’s get away with murder from non payment to arrears being taken at such a small amount that will take years to pay back.
Claims against the amount to pay for travel to see my youngest son which was a total of £9 every 2 weeks. Which he tried to claim even though he was not seeing my son at that time.
Because the way the system works i feel that they are allowing my ex to have control over what happens in my life as well as my childrens by reducing the amount i have in. I have been told i have an allocation of £50 a week but i should not count on this amount.
Everytime my ex puts in a change of circumstances the agency can not enforce the payments so he can pay as little as he like and eventually we will get the arrears for you but not at the amount i lost a week but some silly amount that means he has 2 years to repay it.
Unfortunatly my ex dated someone in the fraud department of the csa……….. who obviously told him how to get out of paying and even now seems to get away with murder. I am not interested in punishing my ex but the idea is to make life esier for my son and all the money i recieve for him goes to his clubs and the things he needs. Because of Bolton i am now in a state where they have nade a gross error and have decided i have been over paid so have decided to half my payments until this amount is paid back to my ex.
He pays 20% of his nett income as maintenance towards my sons costs there are no birthday presents no christmas presents nothing else for him. My son always has been diagnosed with adhd and we are awaiting to get him diagnosed with dyspraxia.
In the last month he left an answerphone message which he does when he deems to call and if we are out has been telling my son to call him when he gets home so i made the mistake of putting the phone on loudspeaker where my 8 year old heard his dad say he was not willing to pay to see him because of mine and my sons attitude of his first visit in 21/2 years as i told him that he could see him but only while i was with him the first time so that my son was comfortable and happy.Well he went on to say he did not wanbt any further contact with my son. So i have an 8 year old that has been informed his dad does not want to know him. If you force absent parents to see their children to stop it costing them more in their pockets my son has to see a man that is not fit to own a dog let alone be a father.
it is true that there are only a few men out there that have this attitude and i know this just from talking to dads that have for whatever reason found themselves not living with their children suffering at the hands of the csa and the ex partner as this is just another way to hurt their now ex partner.
The CSA is there to sort these things out so that the children get a decent standard of living and yet they are letting the children down i am convinced my ex does what he does to punish me.
It is by no means the fathers that are being screwed over by the csa but all parents are fighting the system that is supposed t be there to fight for the children. It is about time this is what they did instead of making vast errors and causing untold heartache and misery, but to takee away the csa and go back to the system wher3e the courts sorted this out would be a mistake as well as this did not work any better as that was the reason the csa was created.