Sussex absentee parents owe £50m in child maintenance (From The Argus)
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Sussex absentee parents owe £50m in child maintenance
3:10pm Monday 21st May 2012 in News By Peter Truman
More than £50 million in child maintenance is owed to single parents in Sussex.
Many lone parents say they are struggling to care for children without any money coming from their former partners.
Figures released by the Department of Work and Pensions showed £86,192,000 was owed in child maintenance in Sussex, with £51,815,100 owed to parents with main care of the child.
Jo Gurr, of the Single Parent Information Network (SPIN) in Sussex, said she was outraged by the statistics.
She said: “It is scandalous that people are able to get away with not paying what is owed.
“I am outraged and it is one of the things our organisation is trying to tackle.
“It is not just the difference of a bit of extra money.
“It can make a large difference to things such as buying school uniform.
“Single parents are struggling as they accept morsels and crumbs.”
Mrs Gurr revealed three quarters of parents who are members of SPIN get no maintenance at all.
She explained many do not want to antagonise an already difficult situation and so do not enter any formal agreement.
Even when child maintenance is sought, sometimes the other party hides their assets or lies about their income, Mrs Gurr revealed.
She added: “There is no help for single parents without having to pay for it.”
Fiona Weir, chief executive of national charity Gingerbread which supports single parents, said: “We hear time and time again from single parents who feel they have been left stranded by the CSA with no information about what action, if any, is being taken to chase the money owed to their children.
“At a time of real economic hardship for many families, this money is badly needed and could really make a difference to children's lives."
Gingerbread has called on the Child Support Agency to make greater use of its enforcement powers, give every parent owed child maintenance arrears a timetable and action plan for the steps the CSA will take to recover the maintenance owed for their child or children and keep parents owed maintenance informed, at six monthly intervals, of all enforcement steps taken during that period and the results.
Work and Pensions Minister Maria Miller said: “These shocking figures underline the long-term failure of a system that has let down countless families. We are now taking tougher action against those who have refused to pay.
“All parents who are still owed CSA arrears can be assured that we will take all reasonable steps to recover this money for them.”
Comments(9)
eee
says...
7:21pm Mon 21 May 12
Argus_reader
says...
8:17pm Mon 21 May 12
Morpheus
says...
9:08pm Mon 21 May 12
mimseycal
says...
11:27pm Mon 21 May 12
Having said that, the CSA is a travesty. It was never really intended to benefit the children but rather was intended to lessen the tax payers bill. It didn't work because it was badly set up, disorganised and inefficiently run.
single mum
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4:13am Tue 22 May 12
Maxwell's Ghost
says...
7:37am Tue 22 May 12
davyboy
says...
7:48am Tue 22 May 12
single mum wrote:it doesn't help the benefit cases at all. i have had no trouble with CSA at all. i am a father who is paying for 1 child, and have done for years, starting with 3 children, and being cut down as each reaches 18, or in my sons case, dies. it has been so easy to deal with them, but you need to approach them without an attitude. even if your ex has no interest in the kids, if he is working, he still has to pay, either to the CSA himself, or through an 'attachment of earnings' order, by which money is taken direct from his wages. he might as well start paying, because they will catch him, and there will be backpay to find!!! i fully believe that if an absent father is on benefits, there should be a deduction from that benefit, but the mother shouldn't lose any benefits. yes, the system is complicated and could be simplified, but absent parents, male or female, should pay.
I am a single working mum which to the CSA is a joke. 6 months they took to even look at my case In 3 years I have recieved 5 payments (all delayed) then nothing at all. And then in December they wrote to me and told me I owed my ex money. They went direct to my wage office and took it all in one hit. Now they wont even look at my case because my wages are deemed "good". Not so good when I have a hefty mortgage to pay. And to add insult to injury my ex went on to have a child with a woman on benefits,they succeeded in getting payments for her within 4 weeks.By the way,my ex has no interest in seeing his kids so I suppose supporting them is out of the question.The only way I can pay the bills is by working 80hr weeks and working through my annual leave. There is no help out there for single working mothers.The CSA leans heavily towards helping out the benefit cases.
willy harris
says...
9:23am Tue 22 May 12
Maxwell's Ghost wrote:bet you have a few around after listening to your comments on other subjects.
If you breed them, then you should feed them.
thevoiceoftruth says...
4:47pm Mon 21 May 12
It's time both parents took responsibility for their offspring and that women who deliberately stop their kids from having a relationship with their ex, even when he pays maintenance and loves his kids, were hauled into court for breaching their side of the access arrangement.