Iain Duncan Smith targets absent fathers to reduce arrears
The new Secretary for Work and Pensions, Iain Duncan Smith, has said that he will compel CMEC (Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission) to bring in £3.8 billion in maintenance arrears.
Duncan Smith has said at the House of Commons that he wants the organisation, which took on the exercise from the CSA, to set itself targets to collect the money and reducing the debt by setting its sights on absent fathers who avoided payment.
He commented:
“Tackling child poverty and supporting families are the key objectives of this Government.”
“A significant component of this is that parents should take responsibility for their families even if both parents don’t live together.”
“However the Government now has inherited a significant debt package of £3.8 billion, some of which dates back before the time when the CSA was amalgamated into CMEC.”
Mr Duncan Smith went on to say that he was aware that no target for recovering the debt existed, but was meeting with CMEC’s chief executive and would instruct him to carry out an audit of how the arrears are collected. He insisted that a target would be set to collect the arrears as quickly as possible.
The proposals met some concern in the shape of Tory MP for Shipley Philip Davies, who said that CMEC regularly failed to go after absent fathers “who are paying nothing”, preferring to set its sights on “people who have already paid to try and screw more out of them”.
He went on to ask Mr Duncan Smith to ensure that CMEC targets:
“Those absent parents who pay nothing rather than try and get more and more money out of many people who are already trying to do their best.”
12 thoughts on “Iain Duncan Smith targets absent fathers to reduce arrears”
Leave a Reply
One of the fundamental reasons why the CSA has been such a catastrophe is because it has reduced the complexities of child support to the simple collection and distribution of money. It doesn’t trouble itself with the answers to questions such as what was the person from whom the money was collected doing with it before it was collected (already supporting their children?)? What will the person to whom the money is given do with it once they have received it (spend it on shoes?)? To CSA/CMEC apologists, money collection and distribution is an unquestionable good, and resistance to this wisdom, bad. If you’re not for the death penalty, you’re for murder, if you’re not for the CSA/CMEC, you’re for irresponsible parenting, and so it goes imbecilicly on. This is the binary ‘logic’ that gave us the CSA, and evidently from the above statement by Iain Duncan Smith, we can look forward to several more years of unremitting failure in child support c/o CSA/CMEC. And they say there’s intelligent life on earth.
Maybe Mr Duncan-Smith can contact me as I would be very willing to speak to him about all this. In fact I can probably help him by explaining to him all the hurdles and red tape you have to go through when you ex (NRP) is self employed! As Mr Clappison my MP didnt know as I hardly think Mr Duncan-Smith will, but I do!
i wish the csa would get their fingers out of somewhere and get some money from my ex who hasn’t given a damn about his son since i left him 18months ago i would not spend it on shoes as per some smart ass comment above but it would actually help feed and buy clothes for a growing kid instead of me working 40hrs a week barely seeing my son to have nothing left any month for even a trip to the pictures while my ex swans off on his hols, wears designer clothes himself and goes out drinking every weekend. Don’t tar everyone with the same brush please.
S Cameron – My above comment may only be described as ‘smart ass’ insofar as it is factually-based. An inconvenient truth, you might say, for CSA apologists who would seek to misrepresent the powers ACTUALLY HELD by the CSA under The Child Support Act 1991. Shooting the messenger won’t change this fact.
To whom the money is awarded, vis-a-vis child support, is not a trifling side issue. Unlike as is the case in the UK, in most European countries, this award is made TO THE CHILD, NOT THE ‘PARENT WITH CARE’. This whole issue is SUPPOSED to be about CHILD SUPPORT, not PARENT SUPPORT. I suggest that not a small part of the problem many people have with the CSA is the fact that ‘the money does not follow the child’.
CSA apologists are fond of caricaturing – and let’s be specific, here – fathers as ALL being irresponsible MERELY BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO COMPLY WITH THE CSA. As I have already stated, this is a binary position, unsustainable by reference to The Child Support Act 1991, to say nothing of the PUBLICLY-RECORDED performance of the CSA. My post merely reveals how, by reference to the actual legislation on which the CSA is predicated, for every ‘Porsche-owning feckless father’, it is just as possible to construct a scenario in which there is a ‘shoe-buying feckless mother’. The reality is that, because of the way The Child Support Act 1991 is DESIGNED, the CSA is just as likely to force a parent to NOT support their children as TO support them. CSA apologists do not want this FACT to be appreciated by the general public and would rather talk of ‘INTENT’. To talk of DESIGN, as opposed to INTENT would risk their whole house of cards collapsing under them.
The Child Support Act 1991 was no more DESIGNED to be a fair and reasonable way of supporting children than was The Poll Tax DESIGNED to be a fair and reasonable way of financing local government services. Both pieces of legislation are examples of DESIGNED, EXTREME RIGHT-WING social engineering. In both examples, you can choose to agree with the DESIGN of the legislation, or you can choose to disagree with it. What you cannot do, however – cannot do and still be FACTUALLY CORRECT, that is – is to make assertions as to this DESIGN being different from that which is on the statute book. The Child Support Act 1991 was DESIGNED to make, particularly poor children, worse off, this so as to disincentivise single-parenthood. Simple as. All the talk in the world will not change this ‘smart-ass’ FACT.
my 3 children i live with are being forced into poverty by the csa… they want half of our tax credits for my ex partner with my 2 children ,, discusting goverment we have im affraid. my wife now wants to leave our home and go on her own back into a councill house and back on benifits which will cost the tax payer more .. we were given this advise by somone who has done this and are now better of and living better …. what a good idea .. so declare splitting up live appart have seperate claims ,, then the csa cant starve your kids that you live with to feed your exes kids with caviar .. or ex partner with new shoes and hair… we are just looking into it now as we have had enough
Iain Duncan Smith (SoS DWP) seems to have made a big deal about the alleged arrears amounts.
In the CS1 rules the CSA had to send out a MEF which then sets the effective start date of the case.
In the CS2 rules you only need contact to set the effective start date.
In law if there is any doubt of receipt of the MEF then the SoS/CSA, without the help of any presumption prove that they have sent the MEF to a correct address.
If the CSA holds a correct address on record and puts an incorrect address on the envelope and then posts that letter then the MEF is deemed as not having been sent (social security commissioners decision dated 2006).
Therefore I’d like to challenge the SoS/CSA to prove that they have sent a MEF to a correct address to all cases on the CS1 rules (prior to 3rd March 2003).
If the SoS/CSA cannot prove that they sent a MEF in all cases (CS1) to a correct address without the help of any presumption then there is no effective start date.
If no effective start date then there is no case.
If there is no case then there are no arrears amounts.
Are the SoS and the CSA brave enough to accept this challenge or will they continue to claim that they are right in order to keep ripping people off for as much money as they can?
i would just like to ask how the nr parent is suppose to live after the csa take 350 a month from my 1100 a month wage, i have remarried & the csa have put us in finacial hardship our out going before the 350 a month to the csa are 970 a month can anyone answer how people are suppose to make ends meet my wife as just been made redundant aswell but the csa dont want to know,
and the the so called case worker was rude very abrupt and could not care less about how we made ends meet she even put an order on my wages & that was done on the fist ever contact by letter i recieved !!
I am acually thinking of ending my empolyment as we just cant manage .
whats wrong with this country dont they see that if they come to a realistis figure that we xan afford to pay each month and stay in work it would be better than claiming benifits the government is so stupid
Article says it all. £3.5 billion of outstanding payments. So! it’s ok if you don’t pay and they can’t find you are they can’t be bothered, but if you are an easy target and have paid from day one you get screwed over and over.
This must have legal implications. How can it be fair that the ones who pay are repeatedly targeted and the ones who have never paid or don’t pay and get away with it?
Pretty sure that if this was tested in the courts, they would have to repay the ones who have paid. It’s call Discrimination and Unfairness! No matter what the Child Maintenance and other payments act says!
One day some one will snapp and people will all hold there faces. think of the countless familys were the father has snaped killed them selfs over the pressuers of life. or snapped because the greedy women of today that drive new cars and have no job! I hate the system. and i hope these idiots get to experiance the hardship caused. but then again they will add that as an expence so who will know.
Totally agree with John about the csa they harass and torture those willing to pay such as I have witnessed with friends and there husbands who have other children and willingly offer their details then end up in complete shock at amounts they can’t afford to pay. On the other hand contractors who change job every time the csa catch up with them or those who go self employed and falsify accounts pay nothing but live well over their declared means are left to it. And we all know why. These cases involve hard work effort and persistence and they have to do some work. Why should the honest and the upstanding have to pay because of cases like mine where for 14 years he has just moved contract whenever they got close. The system is a joke as well as being totally unfair to all parties involved.
Ian duncan smith is a stupid fecking pratt who should be put out of our misery but thats just my opinion and I could be wrong.
John on June 7th, 2011 5:51 pm
One day some one will snapp and people will all hold there faces. think of the countless familys were the father has snaped killed them selfs over the pressuers of life. or snapped because the greedy women of today that drive new cars and have no job! I hate the system. and i hope these idiots get to experiance the hardship caused. but then again they will add that as an expence so who will know.
Until I looked into sites like this I didn’t even know about the people who killed themselves as a result of the csa intervention into their lives. Since then I’ve started to really wonder about the rise in the number of people killing themselves AND their children following a relationship breakdown. I wonder if its because of a realisation of what they must face, loss of contact, csa, ruined life etc. It doesn’t matter though, its unlikely that any politician gives a flying fidget for them, or you oe me, after all they approved the csa. Its also unlikely that anyone in the higher echelons of the civil service care two hoots as long as the csa provides employment for low grade civil servants who wouldnt be able to find work in the private sector, after all they were the ones that thought the csa up right? We mere mortals may be excused for thinking of these people as ‘evil criminals’ with ‘blood on their hands’, after all what do we know right? Things change, these people wont do anything until it affects them directly, if the next time someone ‘snaps’ as you put it and a politician or senior civil servant is on the receiving end then watch how quickly they shutdown the csa. Things change.