http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13831926

I agree that a charge needs to be made somewhere...at the end of the day its a very expensive operation to run, so yes somehow they need to claw some money back

BUT I dont think the person claiming should pay and I also don't think there should be an ongoing charge taken out of the money

What I think it should be changed to is that if the lone parent has tried, and they'd have to prove it (letters etc) and the non- resident parent is refusing to pay then the lone parent should be able to apply to CSA, prove they have tried and then CSA chase the non-resident and charge them! Cos its the non-resident that is refusing to pay!!!!

So maybe they should charge a monthly fee for every month that goes by without them agreeing to pay

I also think if the CSA have to collect the money then the non-resident should pay a fee for that - if the non-resident is decent enough to pay each month the right amount then they should deal directly with the lone-parent - that way the CSA isn't collecting money that it doesn't have to.

What do you think?

we pay direct to marc's ex because the CSA were usless we were paying £74 a week and she was getting £45

i think its really bad that they are thinking of charging £100 ( £50 on benefits), and then an additional 7-10% from the weekly payments!!! I mean, i can sort of see why they need to do it, but are they soon going to start charging when you go into the council offices to put a claim in for benefits and need some help? I mean, me and andy are probably going to arrange things privately, and ill ask him for a bit less than the csa say i should get, but i think this will encourage people to not try and claim child maintenence and then surely the crappy fathers are getting away with it, and the good ones are still paying, like they were anyway? especially as child maintenence no longer affects your benefits!

I understand they need money, it's a big and hard thing to run but i don't agree with the way they're wanting to do it.

I do think people should try and set up their own agreements, as in my opinion the CSA is utter crap. I'm still dealing with arguments every few weeks between my parents about CSA. My dad obviously doesn't have to pay for me anymore but theres a debt he still needs to pay from 3yrs ago. He can be tricky to deal with but he pays when he can, self employed yet CSA phone him up constantly telling him they're about to send baliffs in etc. He's told them repeatedly he doesn't actually own anything (he's the kind of fancy free, no responsibility type. everything is his girlfriends) My dad gets stressed tho, phones my Mum and yells then I have to calm them both down. It's bloody ridiculous.

Yes direct deals between parents would be great but unfortunately there's a lot of absentee parents that just won't do that. Why punish the person wishing to claim?

Why should single parents have to pay to make the other parent support their child?!

Fair enough, the CSA should get some money for their service, but to make the single parent pay is stupid to me.

Make the waste of space "parents" who won't support their child off their own accord pay the charge!

Not that it makes a difference to me, what is 7% and 12% of £0.00

always been a joke and this just proves it.

had a letter of crikey got to over 9yrs ago now about rich dad and they informed me that they had found him.

dob for him was ?/?/1996.... rich was born in 1999.

that phonecall was fun, they closed the case shortly after, never found him, never got any money from him, but i wouldnt have got it anyway because then it just went to benefits agency to pay my benefits, we wouldnt have seen any of it.

think this notion may backfire

I think the csa are a waste of time. My ex has not paid a penny for 5 years. I cannot work out why its taken them nearly 2 years to track him down and still they say they cannot trace him.
I think its a joke x

Dans uncle (he is ok an man , but the fact he did this makes me dislike him!) left his family about 10 years ago, and has never once paid a penny towards his 2 kids, who are now over the age to need it BUT he owes thousands from over the years...and to avoid having to pay he lives in a mobile home so he can't be traced and works as casual labour

His boys, Dans cousins often ask where he is, but Dan can't say.....if it were me I'd bloody put CSA onto where he is!

^Even if you did, i doubt they'd do anything.

My mum supplied them with my Dad's address when he first left and they completely ignored it, then when they finally 'found' him they had to right off a load of his debt as it had been so long.

At one point they reckoned he owed £60000.. although what they based that on I dont know!

csa calculator worked out that andy should be paying me £40 a week! he earns about £20,000 a yr, so he would be having to give me over 10% of his earnings, and ill be on benefits etc, and still wouldnt need that much, I think that they need ot take personal circumstances into consideration, and not just peoples wages!

jessicar1990 wrote:

csa calculator worked out that andy should be paying me £40 a week! he earns about £20,000 a yr, so he would be having to give me over 10% of his earnings, and ill be on benefits etc, and still wouldnt need that much, I think that they need ot take personal circumstances into consideration, and not just peoples wages!

I really admire your attitude hun and I totally agree with them taking personal circumstances into account. My OH has always paid his ex wife for his daughter which is exactly how it should be. However they didn't go through CSA but she used the calculator to set the amount. This was all very well but what that doesn't take into account is that when they split he was forced to take on all their debts which they had originally been paying half each - this amounts to approx £450 a month with £250 a month maintenance on top that's 1/3 of his take home wage a month before we even try to live. The debts were mostly run up by his ex on catalogues and CCs but stupidly he took out a loan to cover a big chunk of it and they split within 12 months. It really winds me up when she moans about how skint she is when OH pay's 20% of his wage even now to pay for things in her home and the car that she drives I live for the day those debts are paid off and we can start to have a life.

I really don't know how to reply to the OP though as there is never gonna be an easy way other than looking at each case individually and that would just cost the country so much that we just can't afford at the minute. I do think that there should be some sort of charge for those avoiding paying or that can't come to an agreement by themselves. Taking a % of the money seems to me like taking money from the child it is intended for which can't be a good thing. However it's easy to assume that it's always the father that is avoiding paying but there are so many other circumstances where the father is maybe holding off paying because he is being denied access for no good reason, ok it's not the right way to go about it but what other option would he have? Also for any fathers saddled with major debt they may not be able to afford to pay what they are being asked for so making them pay a fee on top would cripple them. It's such a complex and difficult topic it's hard to even know where to start tbh.

xx

They don't seem to realise that the absent parent does actually need to pay rent, eat etc. and ok, i know they should pay, but also if the child is staying over night then they need enough bedrooms to accomodate this, and need to buy things like beds, and toys, or pay for days out etc, i think it would be better if they just got rid of csa, and either did it like they do tax credits, so you have to renew your claim, and its individual to your circumstances, they could possibly even merge them together!