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Not receiving money from the CSA

June 28, 2009

My son was 4 last week and I have only ever received approx 6 payments in this time. Yes his dad is making it difficult for the agency, but at the same time they are not using common sense or doing all in their power to aid the situation.

At first they claimed they could not trace his dad despite me giving them the last known address and family address. All trace action came back as untraceable, then low and behold I stumbled upon him in his uniform in his work place. Still this wasn’t plain sailing and took an absolute age to set up a deduction of earnings order. The agency now claim he isn’t full time employed and hence the lack of consistency in payments. Surely common sense would make you realise he must have another income or how on earth is he surviving, the agency have confirmed he is not in receipt of any income related benefits. I played detective yet again and facebook come up trumps with him advertising his second cash in hand income. The agency have failed to do anything with this information and again my son is going without.

The agency does hold a liability order that is now two years old, but have failed to collect anything through this. I have exhausted complaining through the Independent Case Examiner’s office and my local MP, I feel like jumping on the nearest cliff. The only thing stopping me is my son, but no one can give me any answers and every week is yet another struggle to feed and clothe my son. Please help I cannot continue living like this!

With the whole expenditure thing being so heavily publicised, is it not possible for the agency to have a fund to pay parents with care and reclaim from the non resident parent. I am sure if it was the governments money the agency were trying to collect they would be a lot more efficient and have more options available to them. Like I said everyday is a struggle and I do not know how much longer I can hold out for a magical answer!!

Written by Charlotte A · Filed Under CSA Complaints, CSA Mistakes 

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Comments

  • Deborah Stephens says:
    February 22, 2012 at 9:13 am

    I have raised three children over the last 20 years without any held from the child support agency. I know that over the years the CSA’s track record of assistance is barely minimal, with one excuse after another. I am a published author of a book Learned Helplessness, the 21st Century Affliction of Single Parents by D Rolf Long which can be found on Amazon. In my book I raise many very relevant issues, most of which I have experienced. My eldest children now aged 22 are twins, boy and girl. Their father has purposely evaded and lied to the CSA over the years so much so that when they reached early teens, I hired a private detective to follow my ex partner to work in order to prove that he was working, and claiming benefits. The CSA lost the report I sent them, twice, even though I sent it twice, and the adviser I was talking regularly with about my problems disappeared to another Case Team. For years, my ex partner used to send bogus book-keeping accounts to the CSA claiming he was never earning enough and was claiming benefits. The CSA never pursued any of this even though time and time again I provided them with proof and relevant information. From 1999-2003 I worked for the National Council for One Parent Families and understood very well the plight of single parenthood and the lack of support the CSA provided. But it didn’t help my individual cases. I have raised my third child who is now almost 15 and in that time his alcoholic father (2nd ex partner) has continued successfully to evade the CSA and maintenance payments. As soon as they had fixed the menial £5 a week against his benefit claim, he starts to duck and dive and moves location. During this transition the CSA have failed to keep up with his whereabouts and it has always been that I have had to advise them of his location. Their powers and enforcement tools are useless. The CSA claims to be able to instigate various methods of enforcement, including sale of a property. Over the years I have advised them the nrp holds stocks and shares he inherited from his father in 2004 and a property worth in excess of £300,000, which he greedily borrows against in order to fuel his drinking habit. Still to date the CSA claim they cannot do anything about it. It just goes on and on and I feel I have tried as much as I can to support my family and I am exhausted to the extent that even now in my late 40’s, it still keeps me up at night. Recently I had several direct debits bounce on my current account. Following this I discovered that once again he had moved and failed to advise the CSA and I have had no regular payments via deductions from his benefit since the beginning of December last year. I contacted them very recently and advised them the payments had stopped and they told me there was very little they could do. As always I am at my wits end. All I can say is at least I raised the awareness of single parents by writing about it and publishing. I predicted in my book that the CSA would again reform and then start charging for single cases and now of course they do. It was only a matter of time. It has never ceased to amaze me that it is harder to evade paying tax or tv licence than it is to evade paying for the support of your own children., Many thanks for taking the time to listen and read.

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