CSA are planning to charge us for there services

xchrisxxx

The CMEC

Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance

22. Our charging proposals will lower the costs of the system further, on top of IT efficiency savings, by reducing the volume of parents using the statutory service where they can agree an arrangement between themselves while preserving this service for those who really need it. As well as reducing running costs we will recoup a small proportion of the costs of processing applications, calculating, maintaining and enforcing maintenance payments. This will remain a heavily taxpayer subsidised albeit more efficient service, but the proposed reforms will ensure that the subsidy is far better targeted towards those who need it.

Our charging proposals
23. For parents who choose to enter the statutory scheme a charge will be applied to the applicant. This will encourage the parent to try and reach a family-based arrangement. The charge, in return for the delivery of a statutory service application, will ensure all applicants have considered at the gateway whether they are able to make a collaborative family-based arrangement instead. This is a central part of our reforms to ensure the child maintenance system supports active choices that will move parents to the right arrangements for them and their children.

24. However, we will need to apply a charge that is also fair and appropriate given the service parents are receiving. For the majority of customers, an application will be good value compared to the child maintenance that will be paid through the case. The average mean yearly maintenance award in the CSA is £1,800 and an average case can be expected to last nine years, which combined would equate to over £16,000 of maintenance over the duration of such a case. Given the long-term financial benefits of child maintenance we believe it is fair and in line with the principles of personal responsibility to ask parents to reallocate a small proportion of their spending so that they can afford an application charge. We will ensure affordability and do not intend to recover the full application charge, which is on average £200. In addition, there are the ongoing costs of transferring and enforcing maintenance payments, some of which will be recovered in the charging principles set out in paragraphs 27-34.

25. We are still considering the level of charges but are looking at the following range to balance fairness to individuals with value for money for the taxpayer:
 An upfront application charge of around £100.
 A total application charge for parents on benefits in the range of £50 with £20 of this paid upfront and the remainder paid in instalments. The instalments for the application only become payable where maintenance is in payment. Therefore a
parent on benefit who applies will never pay more than the upfront charge if no maintenance is received from the application.
 A charge of £20–£25 for the calculation only service.

26. Moving towards 2015, a methodology will be developed to take account of the introduction of universal credit and we will publish our proposals for this in due course.

27. To ensure fairness within the system, charges must be placed on both parents where a case is in the statutory scheme’s full collection service

Therefore a collection surcharge on the non-resident parent will be introduced as a contribution towards the cost of the service. The surcharge will be applied as a percentage of the maintenance amount to be paid

Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State
for Work and Pensions by Command of Her Majesty
January 2011

Cm 7990.

AnxiousMum

At first glance - this sucks. But.......single parents on benefits are able to pay a small deposit on the application, and small installments thereafter.

But.........

Should it not be the parent they have to chase for payment who has to pay?

My case is Canadian, but I do know that the ex was hit with a service charge for enforcement (which will be tacked onto the end of his maintenance when it is no longer payable due to independence of the child) when he got to the point where he had been late on two occasions.

Somebody has to pay for the service - and I'm sure that there are many childless couples/singles out there who object to the amount of money spent on administration costs of the CSA.

The whole idea of the charging though, seems to be that they would like parents to come to an agreement of what is a suitable support payment, and then to stick to it. In some cases this will be next to impossible, but could work in a large number of cases.

I don't think that there should be an 'application' cost for it though - but do impose financial penalties for those who refuse to pay - it's because of them after all that there are costs incurred in chasing the payment!

DUTR

AnxiousMum wrote: »

At first glance - this sucks. But.......single parents on benefits are able to pay a small deposit on the application, and small installments thereafter.

But.........

Should it not be the parent they have to chase for payment who has to pay?

My case is Canadian, but I do know that the ex was hit with a service charge for enforcement (which will be tacked onto the end of his maintenance when it is no longer payable due to independence of the child) when he got to the point where he had been late on two occasions.

Somebody has to pay for the service - and I'm sure that there are many childless couples/singles out there who object to the amount of money spent on administration costs of the CSA.

The whole idea of the charging though, seems to be that they would like parents to come to an agreement of what is a suitable support payment, and then to stick to it. In some cases this will be next to impossible, but could work in a large number of cases.

I don't think that there should be an 'application' cost for it though - but do impose financial penalties for those who refuse to pay - it's because of them after all that there are costs incurred in chasing the payment!

I don't see why, although the 2nd line of part 27 suggests that the NRP would be paying through the nose even more.

clearingout

This was inevitable, I think, when the disregard for parents on benefits was dropped in April last year. They need to re-coup their costs somehow. it's hard to tell what the reality of most situations is on a forum such as this as the reason we're here is generally because we've had problems. However, I suspect that most people who use the CSA do so because either negoiations on maintenance have failed or, as in my case, no negoiations were ever opened due to one party not wanting to part with any money! In other words, those who can least afford it are the ones who are using the CSA and now they're facing a charge on top of that. Not good. It worries me that those of us who need to pursue an ex through the courts are going to be charged even more and/or left to our own devices so that more and more children end up with nothing. The statistics that were released with this announcement were quite staggering - thousands of children in households receiving nothing at all.

I can feel a letter to my MP coming on....

DX2

Can I claim a refund?
They don't do what it says on the tin.

AnxiousMum

DUTR wrote: »

I don't see why, although the 2nd line of part 27 suggests that the NRP would be paying through the nose even more.

Because if enforcement has to take place, it's simply because the NRP has refused to pay what is supposed to be. So I can see them enforcing fees for collection of arrears.

As it is a child's right to receive child support however, I do think that an application fee is unacceptable.

Kimitatsu

DX2 wrote: »

Can I claim a refund?
They don't do what it says on the tin.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::T:T:T

Roy_G_Biv

CSA are planning to charge us for there services

If I recall, this is a step backwards to the early days of CSA - Fees.

It was the NRP that paid them, but since child maintenance liability was measured against taxed income, the workaround was to stop paying tax which then stopped the fees.

RedSky

Posting the full details would have been fairer to help people to form a complete opinion.

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/strengthening-families.pdf

Paragraph 32 - Personally I don't see how they can justify a percentage based collection charge unless the the costs to collect/process payments increase proportionately with the amount of child maintenance collected. Unless of course they are using it as an opportunity to raise revenue opposed to pay for the actual costs incurred.

DX2

RedSky wrote: »

http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/strengthening-families.pdf

Love this paragraph from your link, I did chuckle out loud at it.

30. Should a non-resident parent choose maintenance direct and then not make payments as scheduled, we will move swiftly to bring the case back into the collection service and take enforcement action to ensure payments are made with the ongoing surcharge being imposed on the non-resident parent. The resulting [FONT=Arial,Arial]payment by the non-resident parent for surcharges will be the result of their choices or non-compliance[/FONT]. The imposition of surcharges on non-resident parents is therefore fair.

Swiftly my @rse.

mrsspendalot

I read this online a few days ago and have mixed feelings about it as I'm both an NRPP who feels this will be good for us (PWC most likely to revert to private arrangement, as previously had been agreed before she went to CSA, to avoid paying the fee), but am also a PWC who is struggling to get maintenance out of my NRP even with CSA case ongoing. I will end up having to pay the fee, which I'm not happy about as seen as my ex will leave me no choice but to pay it (he has willfully avoided CSA since May, not paid maintenance since Feb so I can't see him suddenly leaping at the opportunity to do things privately)