Can child maintenance disclose my confidential details?
My daughter has lived with me the past 7 yrs and when sure turned 18 she decided to re build her relationship with her mother who had left her at the age of 11. When she moved to her mothers I cancelled the CSA payments and thought that was that! How wrong I was …….
Her mother has decided to make a claim against me to the Child Maint Svc (CMS) and is trying to fleece me even though she never paid anything for 2+ years.
I received a letter from my ex wife last week which was vile and contained many of the usual threats she likes to make. However the main point was that she knew how much I earn’t last year.
I have spoken with CMS today and they confirmed that they have indeed provided my annual earnings to my ex wife which they got from the HMRC. The CMS stated today that they had the right to disclose my private and confidential earnings under the new legislation of the CMS. I am horrified by this as the CSA couldn’t disclose my ex wife’s earnings at all and I knew she “fudged” her annual earnings and she didn’t declare her 2nd job and what was annoying was that the CSA didn’t care about any of this.
On speaking with HMRC this evening they were rather surprised that the CMS had disclosed my earnings and they agreed that my details are confidential.
Has anyone else had this issue or even aware of the CMS disclosing annual earnings. I am investigating the matter of data protection as I have never been asked or advised that my earnings would be disclosed by the CMS and I do not see how they can do this without someone’s consent?
Any help and advise would be extremely useful …..
18 thoughts on “Can child maintenance disclose my confidential details?”
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HRMC have rule CSA – CM do not play by them , their loads of thing HRMC have rules & laws on that CSA – CM belive they are above cos they cant get charge for it , If you try sue them for it you sue the letter head not the human that did the law breaking ! So they believ they are above it ,
You are so right
No they can’t disclose that information to her. Your finances are nothing to do with her
The actions of the CMS breach European Human Rights Law. As a UK government body their actions shock and surprise me and I wonder if they are aware of the laws they should be adhering to.
These are set out at http://echr-online.info/
The Citizens advice bureau also has an explanation of these laws.
Article 8
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-rights/civil-rights/human-rights/what-rights-are-protected-under-the-human-rights-act/your-right-to-respect-for-private-and-family-life/
Article 6
https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/law-and-rights/civil-rights/human-rights/what-rights-are-protected-under-the-human-rights-act/your-right-to-a-fair-trial/
I understand they have provisions to compensate people for these abuses.
Under the Employment Rights Act 1996 section 13 you have:
13 Right not to suffer unauthorised deductions.
(1)An employer shall not make a deduction from wages of a worker employed by him unless—
(a)the deduction is required or authorised to be made by virtue of a statutory provision or a relevant provision of the worker’s contract, or
(b) The worker has previously signified in writing his agreement or consent to the making of the deduction.
(2)In this section “relevant provision”, in relation to a worker’s contract, means a provision of the contract comprised—
(a)in one or more written terms of the contract of which the employer has given the worker a copy on an occasion prior to the employer making the deduction in question, or
(b)in one or more terms of the contract (whether express or implied and, if express, whether oral or in writing) the existence and effect, or combined effect, of which in relation to the worker the employer has notified to the worker in writing on such an occasion.
Statutory provisions have been confirmed to be Tax, National Insurance and Pension Contributions, a Statutory Provision is NOT a Deduction from Earnings Order enforced by the Commission as it does not comply with the Attachment of Earnings Act 1996, nor does the Agency hold any judicial capacity to make any Judicial Order, that’s the job for the Courts. It has to be proven in Law that the non resident parent is the liable person, the only way this can be done is in court, just the same as a Council Tax Liability Order. If it is proven that the non resident parent is liable then the commission has to apply to the courts to get an Attachment of Earnings order, which is the correct procedure according to their legislation.
The CM have stated that they send out all peoples earnings now – I have checked with a couple of people I know going through the CM for the first time and they have just found this out this past week and are furious and the CM have again stated they allowed to do this. I have filled this with the ICO now and I am on a mission as from all the back ground checking with the data protection act they have broken their own rules and guidelines. Under the EU legislation of human rights there is some serious grounds for concerns – I am not a lawyer but this is looking like CM bullying tactics.
The c.s.a / c.m.s break many laws but tyou have no appeal process
BREAKING CHILDRENS ACT MOST OF THE TIME
BREAKING HUMAN RIGHTS ACT
BREAKING EQUAL RIGHTS ACT
I had an issue of confidentiality with HMCTS & CSA albeit, I believe, very different from the ‘standard case’ but I found this to work quite well.
“I remind HM Courts & Tribunals Service that this will be the Third and final time I inform you that I do not consent to you sharing my personal information.
It is my understanding that any supply of my personal information to anyone without my consent would constitute a common law breach of confidence.
Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
The absence of a written agreement underpinning such data sharing may also be a breach of the seventh data protection principle under the UK Government guidelines.
It is my understanding that if I believe my consent is being or has been manufactured a First and Final Notice will be served to whomsoever person accepts liability or any person found to be acting outside of the role afforded to them through legislation.”
(part of the human rights act is quoted)
or send them a letter such as this and demand a response:
The child support agency has vowed that any day now it’ll evoke a misdirected response to genuine unresolved grievances. This is hardly news; the child support agency has been vowing that for months with the regularity of a metronome. What is news is that it insists that without its superior guidance, we will go nowhere. I profess that this allegation does not withstand scrutiny, in part because the child support agency uses mysticism to shatter and ultimately destroy our most precious possessions. That’s the large elephant in the room that nobody ever talks about. Nevertheless, I feel that people really ought to start talking about it because then they’d realize that for the child support agency’s vulgar plans to succeed, it needs to dumb down our society. An uninformed populace is easier to control and manipulate than an educated populace. Faster than you can say “philoprogenitiveness”, schoolchildren will stop being required to learn the meanings of words like “indistinguishability” and “poluphloisboiotatotic”. They will be incapable of comprehending that if you’re like most people around here, you’ve already gotten into an argle-bargle at some point with the child support agency about where the free exchange of ideas ends and outright stupidity begins. In my case, it was claiming that it’s the best thing to come along since the invention of sliced bread. I, in turn, made the counterargument that we must challenge its claims of exceptionalism. If we do, then perhaps a brighter day will dawn on planet Earth. Perhaps people will open their eyes and see that to understand the child support agency’s motives, I assert that we must examine the deep culture of the child support agency’s terrorist organization—its key psychosocial traits, good and bad. If we do so, I predict we’ll discover that the child support agency has stated that the world’s salvation comes from whims, irrationality, and delusions. I find such declaratory statements quite telling. They tell me that we should agree on definitions before saying anything further about the child support agency’s louche obiter dicta. For starters, let’s say that “mercantalism” is “that which makes the child support agency yearn to defy the rules of logic.” Stand with me, be honest with me, and help me teach spleeny, hopeless leguleians about tolerance, and together we’ll raise the quality of debate on issues surrounding the child support agency’s prurient, disorderly refrains. We’ll lift the fog from its thinking. I’m counting on you.
Yours in anticipation
USETHIERINCOMPETENCE
My case might be a little different from the run of the mill – in that it’s not a parent / parent divorce or separation. My 15 year old daughter decided that she didn’t like living with my wife and me (parents), her 20 year half sister (wife’s previous marriage) cajoled her to go and live with her and her boyfriend. They then applied to the CMS who told them that they could have £750 per month (sepearate claims on me and my wife!)
These fraudsters (CMS) divulged the amount that was available and when I questioned this they denied this had happened., I insisted they listen to the calls between PWC (Ha!) and the CMS – spookily enough “your earning were not divulged”.
However I since learned from one of the less militant call takers that they regularly indulge in the old parlour game of guess the number and the CMS say “more available” or “not that much”. How the hell is that allowed.
Once armed with the amount available they know exactly how much a person earned.
Charlatons.
FYI – I’ve been provided with a direct dial number of the CSA Complaints Review team if anyone requires it.
01912351002
I can only suggest that if you know the child support agency have “got it wrong” then write to everyone that is available and make them aware. Once you’ve made them aware contact them as often as possible to chase them for a response (within reason that is). And always always look into their procedures. if you do happen to find discrepancies between your data file and their procedures and in addition any record of account is wrong and you know that to be true then you may challenge them in any court with the land however you should be making it your case and not be on the defence of one of theirs. 😉
All the PWC has to do when they get the ;expected payment schedule’ is get on the calculator and work out exactly how much you earn, after all 15% for 1 child etc does not take a maths genius to multiply by the payment she is getting per month and voila she knows your info.
I asked CMS not to share my new address with my ex but they still shared it with her
Can they do this ?,
Or have they broken GDPR rules?
I have exactly the same issue, they have sent my ex my new address and also sent copies of my communications between CMS and myself. I’ve contacted ICO about this and they say it’s two separate cases – 1) breach of personal details and 2) breach of confidential information. Definitely log this with ICO too, as I specifically stated I didn’t want my ex wife to know where I was living these days, and they’ve 100% gone against my instructions.
My partner has the same problem. He raised a query, which apparently you cannot do, it has to be an appeal (which immediately got his ex’s back up). As part of this he was required to submit wage slips. These were then shared with the ex, who went on to share them with her new partner who has been posting information from them publicly on social media. Surely this whole chain of events is illegal? We just don’t know where to start?