“Child” Support in the UK

‘Child’ Support or ‘Mother’ Support?
(What follows relates just to the UK)

Since 1992 the Child Support Agency (CSA) has been responsible for
calculating, collecting and enforcing what is technically called child
maintenance. The formula has changed three times over the years and a
new review has recently been completed.
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/childsupport/

Here is an extract of the comments from Minister responsible – the Rt
Hon John Hutton MP
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions 24/07/06 -

‘But as we know, and despite the best efforts of its staff, the
overall performance of the CSA has fallen well short of expectations.
When we came to office the agency cost more to run than it collected
in maintenance. And it has been taking longer to process claims than
the court arrangements it replaced … But problems have persisted.
Only a minority of cases handled by the CSA receive any maintenance.
There is a backlog of around 300,000 cases. Debts of over £3 billion
have built up with limited prospects of recovery. There is a net cost
to the taxpayer of around £200 million per year. And levels of
customer service, although they have improved recently, have never
reached the standards of quality and consistency the public are
entitled to expect.’

So what has gone wrong and why are so many fathers (primarily)
refusing to cooperate with the CSA?

1) Background. When parents separate, overwhelmingly the mother
becomes the main carer. That in itself should be the subject of a
later article on anti-male discrimination in the family courts.
Under the current system, 100% of the child benefit, child tax credit
and all other benefits of having children go to the main carer,
normally the mother, the other parent gets nothing, regardless of any
shared care arrangements. This ‘Winner Takes All’ system has been
reinforced and strengthened in recent years. The amount of money that
the state gives to the mother is dependent on her income. If she lives
with a new partner, then his income is included in the calculation,
reducing her benefits. Thus the Government is effectively rewarding
and encouraging mothers (primarily) to live alone when looking after
children. This is also a potential subject for a separate article and
overwhelmingly not in the children’s best interests (see
www.civitas.org.uk ‘The fatherless family’).
The main carer also has the right to make an application to the CSA to
assess maintenance to be paid by her ex-partner. If she claims Income
Support, or income-based jobseekers (unemployment benefit) or the
Guarantee part of pension credit (60+ only) then it will automatically
trigger a CSA application and her benefit will be reduced if she
refuses to cooperate with the CSA and name the father (with exceptions
where she is able to demonstrate a risk to her in naming the father).

2) The Assessment process. For claims started since the review of
March 3rd 2003, the father (primarily) has to pay 15% for one, 20% for
2 or 25% for 3 or more children of his ‘net income’ if over £200 per
week. Below £100 per week he must pay £5 per week unless on certain
benefits when he pays nothing. There is a ’sliding scale’ for incomes
between these two figures.The ‘net income’ is calculated by deducting
income tax, national insurance and mortgage/rent payments off his
gross. There is a calculator on the CSA website.
https://secureonline.dwp.gov.uk/csa/v1/new/calc.asp
This amount is then reduced by one-seventh for each 52 nights per year
that the children stay with the father. However, since it is normally
the mother who controls the amount of contact, she is rewarded for
reducing his contact by getting an increase in the assessment of his
income. This is unfair and discriminatory.
Further, it is unfair and discriminatory that this reduction is based
on ‘nights’ contact rather than ‘days’. In the most common situation,
the father is required to move out of the family home and then has to
try and find alternate accommodation. Normally he ends up in an
unsuitable bedsit. Unsuitable in the sens that he cannot have the
children staying overnight. He may, if he is lucky, see the children
every day after school. Even if he sees them 365 days of the year, he
will get NO reduction in assessment as it is based on nights contact!
This is discriminatory and unfair.
In the best situation for children, where they spend equal time with
both parents after separation, the mother would get 100% of the
benefits and tax credits associated with having the children, the
father would get nothing. If the mother makes an application to the
CSA, then the father would be assessed to pay half the figure
calculated above – thus he has to pay all the costs when the children
are with him and half the cost when with the mother, thus he pays
three-quarters of the cost and she gets all the help from the
Government – that is entirely unfair and discriminatory.
When the CSA was introduced by a Conservative Government, they
intended to transfer the cost o supporting single mothers from the
state to the father. Unfortunately for them, it backfired as most of
the mothers on benefit were impregnated by fathers on benefit so
nothing much was collected. Thus it was extended from ‘absent’ parents
to all fathers – people like me where the mother was not on benefit
and we had a voluntary arrangement in place. Thus she could now get
greedy and pursue me through the CSA – all the money collected was
passed on to her. Thus this process of targeting fathers where the
mother was not on benefit meant that more money was collected by the
CSA and they used this to try and ‘justify’ their existence. However,
since all of this was passed on to the m,other, the cost of processing
non-benefit claims was passed on to the taxpayer – hence the high
running costs of the organisation.
Even more bizarre, the assessment process is only based on the
father’s income. So if the mother is rich and/or living with a new
partner it does not make any difference, the father will still have to
pay the above assessment! This is unfair and discriminatory.
Fathers who do not pay are likely to receive automatic attachment of
earnings orders if they are working, no court procedure is necessary.
Thus the money will come straight out fo their salary and the employer
can charge the fasther for making the deduction. This is unfair and
discrimiantory.
The CSA also have the power to take away the father’s driving licence
and to put him in jail and charge interest on the money whilst he is
in jail. Who said that debtors prisons had been abolished. Even if the
father goes bankrupt he cannot wipe out his CSA debt. This is
disproportionate, discriminatory and unfair. These factors, plus the
high level of errors and over-charging in the assessments make up some
of the main reasons that so many fathers run away from their children.
If the csa cannot catch you they cannot penalise you. Also at least 60
fathers are known to have killed themsleves as a direct result of CSA
assessments. So much for a system to help children! Children need
their fathers more than a bag of money.

3) The future

I would like to see the whole thing scrapped. Now that mothers receive
£5000 per year per child in benefits and tax credits if they dump the
father – less if they stay with him – there is no financial need for
the mother to continue receiving this state-enforced maintenance – it
is just an arbitrary additional bit of pocket money for the mother.
Since the money goes to the mother, and not the children, it is up to
her how she spends it. She does not have to spend it on the children
and is not checked to see where she has spent the money. If the father
spends money on the children, the CSA will only deduct it from his
payment if the mother agrees. This is why I prefer to call it the
‘Mother’ Support Agency.

Since there is no chance of the organisation being scrapped, I would
propose changing its approach from being one of the main factors in
driving men away from their children or to suicide, to one that would
bring fathers back to their children. I would suggest that any father
that had any contact with his children should pay nothing. Only those
fathers who knowingly and willingly ran away from their children
should pay the assessed figure – thus the CSA could truly target the
‘absent’ parents and not those who are trying against all the odds to
be real dads. Of course many fathers either do not know they are
fathers because the mothers did not tell them, or even worse
deliberately block the father from having contact with the children,
without an extremely good reason. These mothers currently are rewarded
for doing this with an increase in CSA assessment. I think this kind
of criminally irresponsible behaviour is psychological abuse of the
children of the worst kind and the mothers should be punished, at lest
by not receiving any maintenance.

I think that the CSA is nothing more than a state-sponsored extortion
racket for vengeful mothers to utilise to persecute their ex’s in an
attempt to try and drive the father way from his kids so that they can
blame him for all the problems that the children subsequently develop.
This kind of hatred and child abuse has no place in a modern ‘fair’
society and should never have been introduced. if we lived in a fair
society where men were treated anything like as well as women it would
have no place. That is the kind of society I would like to help create
and a small but extremely significant step would be to scrap this
vindictive, nasty and most-hated of Government departments.

Tags: children, CSA, discrimination, fathers, gender, human rights, mothers, parents, persecution, unfairness