Government reform on Child Maintenance

[MargaretR]

In my civil service career I was involved in the administration of the system which operated before the CSA was devised.

That system had its flaws too, but at least it was more flexible than a point scoring, form filling based calculation that the CSA produced.

Maintenance was decided in courts -
..County courts decided maintenance awards when divorce was granted
..Magistrates courts decided maintenance in other cases, and when a divorce followed a magistrates decision, that magistrates maintence order still applied.

Often a County Court maintenance was 'registered' in the Magistrates court, because magistrates courts had 'collection' facilities which County Courts didn't, so official records would show whether or not payments were in arrears. The court collection office forwarded the payments to the parent who had the child custody. It was the preferred way of administering maintenance between couples because the absent parent could get tax relief on payments, and the recieving parent was taxed, (if employed).

Using courts involved the legal fees of solicitors, but the legal aid system was more lenient then, so that the vast majority of such legal actions were free to most people.

Often no court action was taken and the maintenance was decided by 'voluntary arrangement'.

I dealt with maintenance for parents who were on benefits and part of my duties involved negotiating such voluntary arrangements. (This often involved finding the absent parent in the first place!).

In such negiotiations, absent parents were interviewed and discretion was allowed, ie - I was allowed to accept an offer of less than the parent could afford to pay if it was evident that such an offer was likely not to be defaulted on. The parent having custody would not lose out because the benefit payments stayed the same - it was just a way of trying to get back some of what the government was paying out.

From what I learnt of CSA practices (I wasn't involved with them) there was fixed amount calculated and demanded, without much regard to individual circumstances, and was the reason why so many parents defaulted on payments.

I consider that payment default happened less often on the old system.

The old system of court payments and voluntary arrangements was complex too, but I regard it as a more humane way of dealing with stressful relationship breakdowns than the CSA methods which replaced it.

[wallop79]

Originally Posted by g jones

I'll take it up. I don't like the Child Support Agency as it causes distress all round. Some men living in poverty, women left the victim of uncaring fathers.

The new charges look like the government is making savings on the backs of ordinary people. Graham I will be coming to see you as I have a lot of questions after reading the green paper thanks

[wallop79]

Also found a group on facebook earlier today Campaign against Tory child maintenance proposals, dont know if it'll make any difference joining it, but the more people kick up a fuss, the more chance there is of making changes to the new proposal (I hope)