shut down the csa

I have experienced problem after problem with the CSA. My ex husband agreed to pay a set amount for our daughter when we split. This was only paid until he discovered he could spend his money on more important things than his daughter! After a lot of thought, I ended up contacting the CSA. I applied online, even receiving a phone call to confirm this. To cut a long story short, months down the line, still hadn't received any contact from them. They denied having any contact with me, although I could name the person I spoke to on the phone, the date and time! I spoke to one of the most arrogant men on the phone who told me "Do you not read in the paper about the state of the CSA?" Not much help to me as a single parent, struggling to make ends meet! I was made to feel like a liar, while my ex was getting off scot-free!
It was eventually 6 months before any kind of payment was collected from my ex(I understand this was quick compared to some poor folks!) - in that time he managed to go on holiday, buy a quad bike and rennovate his house - they are the things that I know of, many more things I imagine too! There needs to be a much improved system in place for those absent parents who chose not to pay for the children they helped to create. My new partner has custody of his son, he receives £5 per week from his ex because she is in receipt of benefits. She has not worked for over 10 years, no reason for this except laziness, yet when she had custody she received £150 per month from my partner on top of all her benefits - not only does the CSA need to be sorted out, so does our government! Rant over!

When my ex-wife, and I, seperated and then divorced (1997/8), I paid an astonishing amount of maintenance, and I had our two children for half of each week (work permitting). I was Merchant Navy, day running 3 days on 3 days off, so had the children every weekend that I did not work and every other three days when I was off the ship. I paid maintenance at £650 per month, which I could not keep doing, on top of the £10,000 that my ex took from our joint account, I also paid for her and the children to holiday in France (£500+), and took all 'debts' with me. When I left the Merchant Navy, I went into pub management, my salary dropped from £18k(tax free) to £15k (taxed, and joint income with my partner!), I simply could not afford the payments to my ex. I reduced the payments to £350, and after two months I dropped this again to £300, in one month my bank 'errored' and paid £650+£350+£300 in one month, which I tried to claim bacvk (but could not, even though it was their fault!), and by now my ex was working 30 hours a week (but claiming for being unemployed) had someone living with her (who was working full-time, claiming unemploymet, and also renting out his own flat which he was claiming rent benefits and Council tax benefit for), so my wife contacted the CSA - and boy was I shafted! Nothing prior to the date of their involvment was taken into account - the shared childcare, the £10k from our account, the debts I took with me (another £17k), the maintenance I had already paid (over £8k) the French holiday (£500). They will also not investigate any of the Benefits Fraud! So, my wife has had over £35k from me, and defrauded the Benefits agency, goes abroad at least twice a year, and I am still expected to pay!! On top of this she moved to the other end of the Country (against a court order!) and prevented me from even seeing my children. They are grown up now (well, they are adults) and have nothing to do with me (due to brainwashing) and the CSA are still trying to get £11K 'unpaid maintenance' from me - I refused to pay any more, until they carried out a full investigation. So they deducted at source, taking £174 a month from my take-home pay of £970, reduced on appeal to £131pcm. I changed employment, contacted CSA and made arrangements to pay £20 pcm (from my take-home pay of £845 pcm), because I was threatened with bailiffs and £20 was the least they would except! My hours have been reduced, so I reduced the standing order to £5, due to losing £100 per month and the cost of living having gone up so much recently. I now find myself some £40k in debt + I owe CSA £9k, or so, and my ex-wife has a really comfortable life - bitter and twisted? You bet I am! All I wanted was an investigation into her fraudulent claims, and to pay a fair amount (with everything taken into account), and to keep contact with my children.

Unfortunately there are always going to be fathers or mothers out there that do the wrong thing by their children.. My ex is one of those. The oz csa treats all the same.. they (non custodial mums and dads) have to pay based on their ability to pay.But I agree the department needs to take into account the other children in the familys. My ex never sees or even rings his kids, there is nothing I can do about it. I make My kids lives what they are, the best I can.

I have had experience of the CSA as a single mum and as a wife.All my experiences of them have been negative.My fathers son has little input into his life and has paid little towards him since we split almost 7 years ago.My husband is now raising my son as well as our 2 daughters yet pays what i see to be a ridiculously high amount for his 2 daughters from a previous relationship.He hasnt seen them for ages due to his ex.Kids are not a weapon,they are innocent victims of the modern world.

From what I hear about it, Yes. The recipient doesn't get the whole amount stopped from the paying parent which is a total rip off for the kids involved and most still don't pay up anyway!

I think child support needs to be entirely revamped - I know of no less than 5 women who purposefully got pregnant because they knew they would then get financial support for the child and it would sort their lives out financially - they picked the guys they got pregnant to and I think it is disgusting that women would do that. In each case they told the guy they were using protection or purposefully damaged the condom. If I was a man I would be paranoid about using condoms and only using my own so I didnt' get set on by one of these women - sadly they give all women a bad rap by this behaviour. I think each case should be assessed on its own merit of both parents situation and financial obligation - how many other children are involved and women should not be able to use it as a way to benefit themselves financially by maybe requiring that some of the funds go into trust where the man is well off and the monthly sum is substantial.

yes i agree, i have been separated from my partner for 10 years and the csa hasn't given a single penny over for my two childre

I very much agree with you disdle one of my sons has three boys and he is a paramedic and has to pay over six hundred pounds every month to his ex wife who can now afford to go abroad at least three times a year one of them skiing at Christmas, with her new husband and baby son as well as my sons three boys. Don't get me wrong he does not begrudge his children anything and has always agreed that he should support them but he should only have to pay what they cost . He is now with a new wife and they can not afford holidays or a new baby and it just seems so unfair.

I wouldn't say it needs shutting down, it does serve an important role, but I would say that the service needs to be seriously overhauled to be fair on BOTH parents.