My formal complaint to the CSA

Formal Complaint to the CSA: I wish to complain about the amount of public money the CSA continually wastes. Not only does the “organisation” not do its job effectively as proven by the many errors that I have experienced over the past twenty years it wastes money in the process.

You informed me in 2005 that I was no longer liable to pay for my daughter as she is 19.

Then for the next two years you sent me a “ream” of paper with a statement informing me that my liability for my daughter was “zero”, another waste of money, time and effort.

Earlier this year you sent threatening letters to me stating that “I was in arrears to the sum of £495.95 dated between “1997 and 2005”. It took several phone calls to ascertain why I owed this money and the dates in question were actually outside of the parameters of the dates set down in the letter as the original letter stated early 2005 and the actual period was the middle part of 2005. Therefore a waste of time, effort and money was expended even before we got to agree that there was an amount owing.

You never make it easy to understand the details you put down. The original letter also stated that this sum was owed not only to my daughter but to my son, who was 19 in 2002, therefore way outside the period in question. Your excuse when asked was that it “Was inside the accounting period for calculations”. No it was not as the period in question was beyond the latter date posted for 2005. The period was for several months beyond it.

When I questioned this with the case officer all I got was the usual indifferent surliness I have come to expect from the staff at the CSA. When I asked any question that did not sound like I am willing to pay a certain amount per month your case officer started to sound like a stuck record merely repeating the same sentence and making it as obvious as possible that I was not worth her time to talk to as a human being.

I was informed by the case officer that “We can do anything we like for as long as we like” when I stated that it was unfair that “The CSA had taken 5 years to chase up their oversight”. I was informed by the case officer that “It does not matter how far back it goes, in fact we have cases we are chasing (oversights) exceeding twelve years” as though it was something to either vindicate the situation or something to be proud of.

We eventually agreed that I would pay £50.00 per month until the debt was paid, (10 months).

I received the paying in slips with a letter dated 20th July 2010. I would have received the letter perhaps the 22nd of the month.

I agreed that I would pay each month when I got paid, 23rd of each month. I paid the first instalment on the 27th July 2010 (I retained the counterfoil of the paying slip as evidence). The 27th was the first week day that I was able to get to a bank to pay.

I have since paid monthly as agreed on or just after pay day in both August and September 2010.

Imagine my dismay and anger when I received another letter from you on Saturday 16th October with a paying in slip enclosed demanding an immediate payment as I have missed a payment.

The last time I looked three payments in three months all around the date I get paid means I am up to date with a further payment due on the 23rd October 2010 which will be made on the 25th when the banks open.

Even when we have an agreement and I am fully cooperating you find it necessary to harass me causing distress and anxiety, which I receive medication for. I, therefore find it reprehensible that the CSA has to employ such “Bully-boy tactics” because it has the power bestowed on it by government and the law “to do effectively what you like with little or no reproach”.

You seem to make mistakes and mess peoples lives around at will because you know we can do nothing to you in return because the law always gives you a way out of any problems you cause.

However if the boot was on the other foot and I made a mistake or underpaid or failed to make a disclosure you would soon be on my back, however you can overlook a deferment for five years then act as though nothing is wrong.

Sending that letter last week was totally unnecessary and a waste of public money especially in a time when the government are slashing jobs and public spending. I don’t know exactly how much your charges are for each letter of that type are, however based on a standard bank letter rate of £12.00 per correspondence multiplied by the number of other people you send unnecessary letters to (as I am far from unique in this treatment) the waste to the public purse must be astronomical?

Under an FOI application I received the CSA stated that for “Every £1.00 that the CSA recovers from absent parents it costs the public purse 44 pence” or 44% in terms of running costs.

Question: How is it then that the CSA is “Value for money?” when it is costing the public almost half as much as it obtains?

Within that FOI letter the respondent stated:

“The Commission does this through its three core functions, which are:

1. Promote the financial responsibility that parents have for their children;

Response: I take issue with that statement as you also harass and hassle parents who also have working and amiable private agreements that neither went through court or the CSA but because it didn’t the CSA feels it has the right to interfere where it was not invited.

2. Inform parents about the different options available, guide them to those most appropriate for them and support them in making private arrangements; and

Response: The CSA like any other government department is a public service and as such should only become involved in a situation when requested. Many times the CSA has used its “enforcement card as a right to involve themselves in an amicable agreement between parents”. The result has been the dissolution of and deterioration of the relationship between the two parents and in some cases the severance of contact between the child and the absent parent. Yet the CSA maintain the illusion that is there for the “best interests of the children”.

3. Provide an efficient statutory maintenance service, with effective enforcement.

Response: As I have demonstrated the CSA is far from “efficient” in its serving of maintenance and what I stated today does not even go close to the maladministration I have experience since the CSA’s conception. However, you do the role of enforcement with the passion of a zealot and treat everyone who is an absent parent as though we are “guilty of a crime”. The tone of your letters is “unnecessarily aggressive with threats of punitive action if we don’t comply”. You do not treat each case individually and for you to send such a letter when it was the CSA who actually made the error of overlooking the deferment and advising me that I no longer was liable is derisory. It is hardly my fault that your people cannot do their jobs correctly. The CSA case officer even had the nerve to try and put the blame on me by stating that I should have known that the non-liability letter did not include the deferment period. When you receive a letter stating that you are no longer liable t!
hen you feel that you are no longer liable. If the letter stated that I was no longer liable for the main payments but may be liable for the deferment in the future, there would be no issue. It is not for the likes of me to do your job for you as I do not expect you to do mine.

I am not naive enough to think that you will not use the old chestnut of “We cannot discuss other cases but your own” when I have broached on wider subjects that are inconvenient to you. The usual stance of the CSA is to hide behind this excuse when it does not wish to answer uncomfortable questions. For the record I have not specified any other cases in detail but various scenario that have come to be typical of the CSA over the past twenty years.

On this basis I have also addressed this complaint through the Prime Ministers Office as well for their viewpoints as I am fed up with the cavalier attitudes of the CSA and their waste of resources and the problems they cause for families.