Cold comfort
written by John Bolch
on Monday, March 19, 2007
Under the heading "CSA flexes its muscles" Family Law Week reports upon how the CSA claims to be using it's powers to help "the Government to get tougher on parents who avoid their financial responsibilities to their children". For details, see this page on the CSA web site. All very impressive, but cold comfort to all the parents still waiting for payment.
June 20, 2007 12:44 PM
Yep me again!!!
This is a copy of a letter sent to John Hutton.....some say that it comes across as angry, i like to think frustration!
Dear Mr Hutton
After reading your white paper with regards to the Child Support Agency, your government would have been better occupied by passing a law to make parents pay, as there is no law in place to do so, read the petition logged with 10 Downing Street.
Perhaps instead of investing time with MP's making the rules and who have no concept as to what it’s like to be a single parent and as to how this agency should be run you should have got some guidance from people who live this on a daily basis i.e. PWC, I think it’s called going to the route of the problem and getting the knowledge first hand, I don’t know, just an idea I have had!
Perhaps when you’re dealing with people who commit benefit fraud, Tax and Vat evasion you could deal with parents in the same manner, they are evading and lying too as it is a legal requirement to pay these taxes, but when it comes to children and living in poverty which your government is hell bent on eradicating no purposeful law is in place, yet you want to remove benefit from single parents once the youngest child reaches the age of 12 and get these parents back into the work environment when there are no child care facilities in place for children over the age of 12, causing children to be unsupervised either at home or on the streets waiting for said parent to finish work, need I point out the dangers of this, but when something goes drastically wrong those parents that you want off the benefit system are deemed unfit because they are working due to your guide lines and the finger of blame is pointed back at them for neglect. What are lovely society you are creating? You are in effect reverting back to the latch-key kid system of the 70’s & 80’s; you don’t really care about children just stats and figures.
I refer to the letter that I received on the 1st February asking me to raise the issue with my MP, how condescending to assume I haven’t, when I have been dealing with this for some 8 years, I am not uneducated and my intelligence should not be thrown into question because I am a single mother, sadly I was stupid enough to think that the CSA would collect payments on behalf of my children, when they have done the exact opposite and have just actively encouraged their Fathers bad behaviour allowing a debt to spiral out of control (£32k) when he is able to purchase a house through non payment, in effect my children are footing his mortgage. My children will never receive this money and the only people who are reaping out of this are the Bailiffs, who do not add there charges when collecting the debt from the NRP, this is FACT not supposition which can be backed by the enforcement team at the CSA Hastings.
I have dealt with the Independent Case Examiner, who took a year to investigate my complaint, and a thorough 28 page document arrived September 2006, which can not be used to complain through the Parliamentary Ombudsman because apparently there isn’t according to them enough evidence. This makes an interesting read, but after the man hours in completing there investigation and the timescale involved in putting this together it in effect a waste of time. I can not sue the government for neglect because the Law Lords have blocked this ability to do so, as you know this would open the flood gates for many, many single parents.
Passport withdrawal apparently does not come into effect until 2008; this should be passed with immediate effect, not delaying for another 2 to 4 years.
Driving Licence withdrawal, you have the powers this has never been instigated with the excuse ‘Well we could do this, but it doesn’t get your payments’, it makes life difficult to freely move though doesn’t it?
Prison for non payment has never been activated although you say that some 20 people have been committed, big wow, out of how many hundred thousands who owe children maintenance.
Self employed – You are going to believe every self assessment you receive are you and not investigate these returns thoroughly. If self assessment returns back to the Inland Revenue for £14k for assessed yearly earnings, when they have a mortgage of say £180k, two cars, holidays, all the mod cons, a wife to support with her two children that’s plausible is it? You do not need to be a mathematician to work out that it isn’t feasible, especially when you live within the M25. Three times an annual salary of £14k would never afford you a home in Hertfordshire, let alone Newcastle.
Bankruptcy is made far too easy and your enforcement team need educating as to how these laws work. In my case out of 4 court cases only one debt has been registered against his property for £15500. The court representative has not known the Bankruptcy law to be able to register debt to homes. Another waste of tax payer’s money in failed court appearances. It is morally reprehensible that he can continue to pay a mortgage on a property when if forcible sold, social housing would be cheaper without any gain to him at all, this mortgage being gained fraudulently, because he was already had a debt on a previous mortgage.
Judges when assessing the debt and are not armed with the full facts by a CSA court representative and are not absorbing the overall debt at large. On the 6th December my ex husband attended court for his committal to prison as an easy escape and for less bartering for the CSA court presenting officer he offered to pay £50p/m which equates to £600p/a off of the debt registered on his home this being £15500.00, this will take 25 years to clear, my children will be 37 & 39 I will be 61 years old, the maintenance grows at £5300 per year….that’s a great result isn’t it, that really isn’t getting tough with absent parents!!!!
I will do a little calculation for you:
As @ 14th February 2007 the debt owed = £31949.24 since July 1999
Monies owed to my two children @ £100.37 p/w until my First son reaches 18 years old (2010) = £17765.49
Monies owed to my Second son @ £50.19p/w reaches 18 years old (2012) = £5922.42
From 14.02.07 to 07.09.12 monies owed will be = £55637.17
What the Secretary of State is owed for my period on benefit = -£9907.44 = £45729.73
Paying that back at £50p/m = 76 years how realistical.
I will be dead and so will there Father
My children will be 89 & 91 years old…AND THAT’S GETTING TOUGH, WHAT AN INSULT, so they will NEVER see this money, will they?
After two failed court appearances last week (March 2006 at St.Albans), one to increase the £50p/m payments against the £15500k debt and another to register and charge his property with further debt I am told that the CSA are unable to take further action until August 2008, and this is when the Insolvency Practice will release his home. I told the CSA that they may as well right the debt off because this will then mean the debt will be nearly £40k by then, the enforcement officer (Julie Watts) said 'Let's be positive'.....'We are trying'...’We need to move forward and right a wrong for the neglect caused’, if this is trying I would hate to see what failing is!! So this is no action for another 16 months and the debt accrues at £100.37p/w which equates to £6423.68 on top of the £32k already outstanding, and I can’t even threaten to leave my full time job and go back to the benefit system as my children are over the age of 12 because Labour want lone parents back to work when maintenance isn’t legally in place.
Perhaps your ‘PARTY’ needs to look at the TAX credits. Maintenance does not effect your tax credit entitlement, it is based on your yearly/monthly earnings. So I do not receive maintenance and should I need to ‘make up for what I do not receive’ from my children’s Father I am penalised, is this Equal and Fare, when you are trying to eradicate child poverty? But this is the best bit. When I visited a lone parent adviser to return to work (Feb 2004) and for them to do the calculations for my children’s after school care she failed to inform the Inland Revenue about child care payments that I would be making and should have received. Two years four months passed by when I informed the Inland Revenue that I longer required after school provision because my youngest child was too old, only to be told I was never paid it, so it is taking me, through the complaints appeal procedure 7 months to try and get these payments back, which is still on going, but I am informed that they will only back date 3 months. 3 months when I have caused enormous debt in our family household over 2 years and 4 months. If I was overpaid the goal posts move the Inland Revenue collect overpayment of more than 2 years, is this fare and equal?
Child Maintenance Bonus fund – these payments are awarded to single parents when they return to work. This is a percentage of monies that is put into another pot shall we say from maintenance paid to the CSA by the non resident parent. This money is usually no more that £500. Did I receive this? No I didn’t because the CSA failed to collect for 24 months initially (July 1999 – June 2001) is this fare and equal, I was only told about this after I returned to work after being assured I would receive this money only to have the rug pulled out from beneath me once I returned to work, good call!
So Mr. Hutton I ask again, when can I make an appointment to discuss this further with you? I also enclose my CV for your perusal as I would like a job on this committee that decides as to how the agency works, I am actively looking for a new role. This would be good practice for you to have first hand knowledge as to how ‘us’ single parents cope, or in my case fight and will never receive monies for our children due to your lame enforcement procedures and your equally tragic white paper that you produced in December 2006, but whilst you are engaging ‘MANAGERS’ at the agency with inflated bonuses for a failing system and for them to not do there job properly why would they want to work, but yet you are more than happy to point the finger of blame of child poverty issues, lawless teenagers, drug abusers, uneducated failing children to single parents. I have an enormous amount of experience in this field that you can feed off of for guidance, not some Sir or Lord who has no idea about the route of the problem that this misery and stress causes the ‘everyday single parent’ whilst you are putting the thumb screws on them to return to work.
Further food for thought – You wouldn’t be able to not pay a mortgage for 8 years and still stay housed, so why do finance houses have more power than the government when recovering debt?
I look forward to our ‘meeting’ and interview for a position within your ‘team’
HE IS A VERY BUSY MAN!!!
NB: Court appearance last Wednesday 13th June 2007 to have his driving licence removed....he offered another £50 off of the registerd debt against his property and this was accepted....CSA ENFORCEMENT TEAM refer to this as a RESULT!!
June 20, 2007 9:24 PM
Great letter.
Did you receive a reply?
June 20, 2007 11:04 PM
The reply was: Mr Hutton is a very busy man!!!
Great isn't it, nothing like getting to the grass roots of the situation....and this is nothing like it.
Thank you for that compliment i so needed to cover everything...and i think this did.
April 03, 2009 3:17 PM
I think you have every right to be frustrated and angry! I am - 11 yrs of it!
I wrote to him too, and Lord Hunt and I wont give up, because I want justice!
April 03, 2009 3:20 PM
Keep writing, fax it if you can!
I would fax Lord Hunt. They will get fed up in the end and have to reply, Ive found the only time I get anywhere is when Im a nuisance!
Reading what you say, seems so similar to my circumstances and I live in Herts/M25!