Hints and tips from a caseworker at the CSA.

CSAworkerx

My other thread offering advice was deleted, not sure why but oh well, so instead ( i do genuinely want to help if i can ) ill list some hints and tips on how to make the whole child maintenance process easier.

General rules for both pwc's and nrp's

1) Probly the most important piece of information your not supposed to hear, Do not under any circumstance shout/swear/threaten a caseworker, Not becuase we dont like hearing it, but becuase this is how and why cases are not progressed quicker than others, for exmaple, when i walk into work tommorw ill have a good 20 cases to work on, lets say ive got mrs X and mrs Y, ive spoken to them both, Mrs X was polite on the phone, gave information when asked and maybe even thanked me for my help ( very rare ), Mrs Y on the other hand i spoke to and she informed me i dont know how to do my job, im completely wrong on everything, the wage slips provided by the employer are wrong ( love this one ), she shouts and swears and moans she needs the money for a new car.

Whos case will i work on first? Simple as that, if ive got 20 and for some reason dont clear them in a day, its 4:30 and ive got half an hour to spend on Mrs x or Mrs y, im chooseing mrs x, thats how your case goes unworked on. Im sure this this will make some people angry, but its common amoung caseworkers.

2) If you want a re-assessment, provide me with evidence, Somthing credible atleast, a change of address, Solid information about the nrps new employer, A reason why he left his old employer the list goes on, stop phoneing in and telling us to re-assess your case becuase a friend thinks the nrp has moved jobs. And for nrp's, if you want a re-assessment, you better have 5 weekly or 2 monthly payslips to back this up, and it better be a significant drop ( think 10%+ to be safe ) before ill even touch it.

Also for nrps, this SHOULD be common knowlage, if you change ure employer and ure on a DEO, or VDEO, for gods sake tell us, if you miss the payment we will then chase ure old employer, this can drag for weeks, and next time i speak to you im going to want 8 weeks child maintenance in 1 payment.

3) Use the phone, ive seen it mentioned here to only contact the CSA in writeing, wow, dont expect your case to be moving any faster than a snails pace, it can be i call the same pwc 5 times in the same day for more info, and up to 10 to an nrp ( my record is actually 12 ) if im waiting for a letter with information i dont need, that means i have to send you one back telling you i dont need it, and you need to provide X, thats 2 weeks ure case has not sat stagnant, use the phone.

4) Dont talk to me about acsess, Im not a solicitor, this will never stop i hear it atleast 3 times a week "she doesnt let me see my kid, im not paying" That isnt somthing i can help with, im there to assess you and to get money flowing, if you need acsess, the courts are arent going anywhere.

5) Disputed paternety, To nrp's do ureselves a favour, if you know the kid is ures, just accept it, i dont need anymore men crying over the phone becuase i want £300 for the DNA ontop of about 12 weeks maintenance in 1 card payment, if you genuinely dont know ure the father, i insist you take the dna test, you only get one chance to go for one and if you dont, dont expect a refund in 10 years when you finally get around to it.

for pwc's, do not get angry that were asking you to take ure kids for a dna test, yes its an in-convenience, but were not mind readers, this guy your telling me is your kids dad might well not be.

Advice for pwc's

1) If you are going to make a claim, before you pick the phone up, sit down with a notepad and a pen, on this notepad your going to want to write absolutely ANYTHING you know that might be relevant about the NRP, if you dont tell me he lives at 123 money street, im going to have to trace him, and that can take time, time i could be spending setting up an assessment for you, Main things i want to know are

Nrp's name ( Yes, ive had a case where the pwc knew he was called dave and drank in the local social club, but thats all she knew )
Nrp's National insurance number, i dont care where you get it from but if you can get this for me, things are going to get moving.
Nrp's address, If you give me an address, and you KNOW he lives there, i can use that as evidence to send him letters, meaning i can send the MEF form and after that point hes liable for maintenance.
Nrp's tel no, obvious reasons. If you know he has a works num or home num, for gods sake give it to us.
Nrp's Employer, If ure nrp is not going to play ball, well need to know where he works and for how long preferably.
Nrp's DOB, can reduce trace time

2) Do not lie about things to get more money, If you tell me the NRP never has the children overnight, and he tells me he has them 3 nights a week, im allready thinking your lieing obviously this isnt the same for every case, but if an nrp is telling me he has them and your saying he hasnt for the last YEAR, not a good way to start off a claim, be honest, if you tell me the truth you can be sure i will be fair, this doesnt mean just agree to what ure nrp says so the claim goes through quicker, but dont lie to me and youll find ure case is getting progressed.

3) Big point here, Do not under any circumstance make a claim for maintenance if your nrp is paying your rent/bills/food/utilitys allready, you will regret this badly, Once you make a claim im going to tell this nrp he does NOT have to spend 1 pence more than his maintenance, and if you have 1 child, thats 15% of his net income, I get so annoyed when i see that an nrp is paying say, 65% of his wages to keep a pwc and the kids in the marital home, hes paying the bills, paying for anything needed, only for the pwc to ring in and make a claim, and ive seen cases where the nrp has, not out of spite, but out of anger, accepted the case, provided every bit of information we asked and a week later when we tell the pwc his assessment is £250 a month, she wants to close the case becuase the nrp will not be spending the £600 he was before, guess what, he can make a claim himself. Just dont do it.

4) Do not tell me about his new partner and / or kids, i havent the slightest bit of interest in them, i dont care if he takes his new family on 15 holidays a year and buys them everything, thats now his choice, do not get involed, and if you must, i dont want to hear about it, i want to hear about the nrp and you, noone else.

5) Double edged sword here, Pick your phones up, if i see an nrp has been non-compliant for years, when i try and ring him when he doesnt pick up im not suprised, its not right, but thats the fact, however when a pwc puts in a claim, and im chaseing an nrp as best as i can, and you wont answer ure phone calls, its like im wasteing my time, if you see a missed call, ring us back, your going to be the ones suffering when in a weeks time the case hasnt moved on becuase we had to send a letter to you. That said, dont phone in every 3 days asking whats what, we inform you at every critical point in a case, when the assessment is done, when ure sceduele is done, when we need information ect. This process takes time, and if ure phoneing me every few days im losing that time.

Advice for Nrp's

1) Goes back to "not getting angry" but do not make this statement or any variant of it to me over the phone "IM NOT PAYING", The moment i hear those words from your mouth, im going to be setting up an enforced deduction from earnings, and i dont even have to inform you of it, becuase your telling me in that statement your not going to set up a direct debit, and your not going to be compling, enforced deo's cannot be removed, so however angry you may be, do not tell me this.

2) Do not think ignoring us will make it all go away, if i find out ure address, and belive me that is as simple as 4 mouse clicks, i can send you a letter, its called a maintenance enquiry form, youll probly bin it ( if your ignoring us ), thats fine, but that letter basically tells you, your not liable for maintence, so keep ignoring us, the bills are piling up, and when we finally get to the end, well be taking 40% from ure wages, and you wont be informed until you check the cashpoint and see the chunk missing ( if your still ignoring us )

3) Be honest about your wage slips, This is the one thing i dont like to do, but have to if your going to lie about them, basically, if you work overtime irregular or not, im going to have to factor this into your assessment, unless we speak on the phone and you tell me it was a complete one off, and you can show me other slips where theres not been any overtime. This reduces your maintence, as ill DISREGUARD the payslip with overtime on it, and assess you on one with no overtime, However, if you lie to me and i feel somthing is up, for exmaple if i ask for 5 slips and you send me 4 with one missing, im within my rights to go to that employer and request the one that is missing, or all 5 again, if i see overtime ill assume you were trying to hide this fact and be forced to assess you with overtime that is regular, boom, your maintence just went up, becuase you just couldnt be rational.

4) Set up a direct debit, This is both the fastest, most reliable, and easiest to hide from a new partner / employer the fact your paying maintence, If you refuse to give me this info, i HAVE to put a DEO in place, and belive it or belive it not, the csa are actually good at handleing DD's, employers, especially small ones are terrible at them, cases have happend where the money has been deducted from the slips, then kept by employers, or sent to the wrong place, do we blame THEM? no, we blame you, and we want the maintence that was lost back. Just bite the bullet, and set up the DD.

5) If you have a relevant other child or children, tell us, and when you do make sure you know whether ure new partner recives child benefit for them, if she does this is going to reduce your maintence, but for that to happen, we need to know the kids names / ages / CHB numbers, so we can trace them and add them to your case.

6) Variations, the biggest headache in the agency, a Variation is somthing other than shared care and relevant other children that we can take into account. Just let me be clear, you may think fuel costs, travel costs, outgoings, loans, or anything else will class in this, in theory they should, but in reality they never do, if your going to apply for one ask yourself this question.

Is what im paying for benefiting my children and the PWC and not myself, if you can answer honestly yes, you have a claim for a variation, the most common being rent/morgatge of the pwc, its not fair for you to pay this and maintence.

( reminds me of a case where an nrp had paid £4,000 for a pwc boob job and wanted a variation, when asked about this his comments were "well i !!!!ing paid for them, and now her new partner enjoys them!" He didnt get the variation )

It may seem a little like im "having a go" at both sides, im not, this advice if nothing else will speed up your case, which if your an nrp means less arrears, and a pwc it means less time before your first payment. i will update this further if people want me to.

Witch_Hazel

I must have missed the helpful hints and tips, this just reads like a sour caseworker slagging off clients.

Bluemeanie_2

Useful insight from the other side of the coin. Hubby has never had any problem using the CSA, but he was immediately compliant and gave all the info straight away etc and has always paid on time.
The only porky he was ever told by the CSA was it had to be the PWC that opened the case.
He was paying a slightly more than the 20% voluntarily but was getting grief, slagged off, bullied for more and "threatened" with the CSA if he didn't pay more. He kept telling her he was paying slightly more so go to the CSA please and stop harassing me. In the end he rang himself so he could prove he was paying his responsibilities and they told him he couldn't open a case.
But other than that it has been fine.
I do get a bit worried about people saying they have arrears out of nowhere though and this will happen to him somehow!

kevin137

I would like to point out that You don't get to choose who you are FAIR with...!!!

If you want to be fair, then you need to treat everyone the same, and as you have already said, this is not the case...

I am particularly interested in the section where you talk about don't bother calling for change of circumstances...

If you want a re-assessment, provide me with evidence, Somthing credible atleast, a change of address, Solid information about the nrps new employer, A reason why he left his old employer the list goes on, stop phoneing in and telling us to re-assess your case becuase a friend thinks the nrp has moved jobs. And for nrp's, if you want a re-assessment, you better have 5 weekly or 2 monthly payslips to back this up, and it better be a significant drop ( think 10%+ to be safe ) before ill even touch it.

Who the hell are you to decide what will and will not be reassessed...??? I thought that the Government made the legislation so that jobs worths like you did not have to make such important decisions...

Just so you know, i don't think you deserve a job like this, and are certainly not capable of being a responsible employee with comments like this you just show your contempt and inability to follow rules... And lets face it, the rules are not that hard, but then being the CSA it is NOW UNDERSTANDABLE why they are in such a mess if this is the attitude people are faced with...

:mad:

13Kent

Thanks, an interesting post. - Some of the points we have gleaned over the years through trial and error!

We always try to be polite to the person on the other end of the phone no matter how frustrated and annoyed we are - we try to remember that in the end they are just someone that has a job to do.

Crellow4

I'm struggling to see how your post paints staff in anything other than a bad light. It's poorly written, grammatically incorrect and the spelling is dreadful. That's before you even consider the content. If I were your line manager we would be having an interesting conversation!

barahs

ooh classy article.

perhaps i should copy that and send it in next time i write to them about my case. And yes i do write, that way i remain calm, am not spoken to like a subhuman and can read their replies to me and digest them at my convenience. But mostly of it is proven in black and white.

cakeforbrains

CSAworkerx wrote: »

1) Probly the most important piece of information your not supposed to hear, Do not under any circumstance shout/swear/threaten a caseworker, Not becuase we dont like hearing it, but becuase this is how and why cases are not progressed quicker than others, for exmaple, when i walk into work tommorw ill have a good 20 cases to work on, lets say ive got mrs X and mrs Y, ive spoken to them both, Mrs X was polite on the phone, gave information when asked and maybe even thanked me for my help ( very rare ), Mrs Y on the other hand i spoke to and she informed me i dont know how to do my job, im completely wrong on everything, the wage slips provided by the employer are wrong ( love this one ), she shouts and swears and moans she needs the money for a new car.

Whos case will i work on first? Simple as that, if ive got 20 and for some reason dont clear them in a day, its 4:30 and ive got half an hour to spend on Mrs x or Mrs y, im chooseing mrs x, thats how your case goes unworked on. Im sure this this will make some people angry, but its common amoung caseworkers.

Don't caseworkers work in teams? How are you supposed to make subjective, opinionated decisions about people's lives if you haven't even heard them on the phone?

2) If you want a re-assessment, provide me with evidence, Somthing credible atleast, a change of address, Solid information about the nrps new employer, A reason why he left his old employer the list goes on, stop phoneing in and telling us to re-assess your case becuase a friend thinks the nrp has moved jobs. And for nrp's, if you want a re-assessment, you better have 5 weekly or 2 monthly payslips to back this up, and it better be a significant drop ( think 10%+ to be safe ) before ill even touch it.

I thought that 'significant' was deemed to be 5% either way in CSA land?

Also, how are PWCs supposed to ensure that the assessment it correct if they're relatively out of touch with the NRP? Sometimes the only evidence is that the NRP has been seen coming out of some other workplace, especially if it's a second job. Why should the PWC and children be penalised because the ex couple aren't close enough to share personal information? And who are you to decide?

Also for nrps, this SHOULD be common knowlage, if you change ure employer and ure on a DEO, or VDEO, for gods sake tell us, if you miss the payment we will then chase ure old employer, this can drag for weeks, and next time i speak to you im going to want 8 weeks child maintenance in 1 payment.

3) Use the phone, ive seen it mentioned here to only contact the CSA in writeing, wow, dont expect your case to be moving any faster than a snails pace, it can be i call the same pwc 5 times in the same day for more info, and up to 10 to an nrp ( my record is actually 12 ) if im waiting for a letter with information i dont need, that means i have to send you one back telling you i dont need it, and you need to provide X, thats 2 weeks ure case has not sat stagnant, use the phone.

I can understand this. I always use the phone. But I can also understand that people get very frustrated on the phone trying to get their point across to, evidently, biased caseworkers.

4) Dont talk to me about acsess, Im not a solicitor, this will never stop i hear it atleast 3 times a week "she doesnt let me see my kid, im not paying" That isnt somthing i can help with, im there to assess you and to get money flowing, if you need acsess, the courts are arent going anywhere.

5) Disputed paternety, To nrp's do ureselves a favour, if you know the kid is ures, just accept it, i dont need anymore men crying over the phone becuase i want £300 for the DNA ontop of about 12 weeks maintenance in 1 card payment, if you genuinely dont know ure the father, i insist you take the dna test, you only get one chance to go for one and if you dont, dont expect a refund in 10 years when you finally get around to it.

for pwc's, do not get angry that were asking you to take ure kids for a dna test, yes its an in-convenience, but were not mind readers, this guy your telling me is your kids dad might well not be.

Advice for pwc's

1) If you are going to make a claim, before you pick the phone up, sit down with a notepad and a pen, on this notepad your going to want to write absolutely ANYTHING you know that might be relevant about the NRP, if you dont tell me he lives at 123 money street, im going to have to trace him, and that can take time, time i could be spending setting up an assessment for you, Main things i want to know are

Nrp's name ( Yes, ive had a case where the pwc knew he was called dave and drank in the local social club, but thats all she knew )
Nrp's National insurance number, i dont care where you get it from but if you can get this for me, things are going to get moving.
Nrp's address, If you give me an address, and you KNOW he lives there, i can use that as evidence to send him letters, meaning i can send the MEF form and after that point hes liable for maintenance.
Nrp's tel no, obvious reasons. If you know he has a works num or home num, for gods sake give it to us.
Nrp's Employer, If ure nrp is not going to play ball, well need to know where he works and for how long preferably.
Nrp's DOB, can reduce trace time

I thought you could get this information in 'four clicks'

2) Do not lie about things to get more money, If you tell me the NRP never has the children overnight, and he tells me he has them 3 nights a week, im allready thinking your lieing obviously this isnt the same for every case, but if an nrp is telling me he has them and your saying he hasnt for the last YEAR, not a good way to start off a claim, be honest, if you tell me the truth you can be sure i will be fair, this doesnt mean just agree to what ure nrp says so the claim goes through quicker, but dont lie to me and youll find ure case is getting progressed.

Why did you assume that the PWC was lying in the above scenario? The NRP could have been. Or they both could have been.

3) Big point here, Do not under any circumstance make a claim for maintenance if your nrp is paying your rent/bills/food/utilitys allready, you will regret this badly, Once you make a claim im going to tell this nrp he does NOT have to spend 1 pence more than his maintenance, and if you have 1 child, thats 15% of his net income, I get so annoyed when i see that an nrp is paying say, 65% of his wages to keep a pwc and the kids in the marital home, hes paying the bills, paying for anything needed, only for the pwc to ring in and make a claim, and ive seen cases where the nrp has, not out of spite, but out of anger, accepted the case, provided every bit of information we asked and a week later when we tell the pwc his assessment is £250 a month, she wants to close the case becuase the nrp will not be spending the £600 he was before, guess what, he can make a claim himself. Just dont do it.

I can totally understand that this must happen sometimes. There's no doubt that this is sometimes driven by greed. For some PWCs, however, the desire to move over to CSA instead of having bills paid by the NRP could be driven by wanting to be more independent or wanting to put those bills in their own name or whatever. Surely this is down to the individual to decide. I am uncomfortable with a CSA worker essentially telling (mostly) women to shut up and put up with what they've got so they don't rock the boat.

4) Do not tell me about his new partner and / or kids, i havent the slightest bit of interest in them, i dont care if he takes his new family on 15 holidays a year and buys them everything, thats now his choice, do not get involed, and if you must, i dont want to hear about it, i want to hear about the nrp and you, noone else.

If the NRP has more children you need to know about it.

If the NRP claims tax credits for those children you need to know about it.

If the NRP's lifestyle is significantly at odds with his declared income you need to know about it.

5) Double edged sword here, Pick your phones up, if i see an nrp has been non-compliant for years, when i try and ring him when he doesnt pick up im not suprised, its not right, but thats the fact, however when a pwc puts in a claim, and im chaseing an nrp as best as i can, and you wont answer ure phone calls, its like im wasteing my time, if you see a missed call, ring us back, your going to be the ones suffering when in a weeks time the case hasnt moved on becuase we had to send a letter to you. That said, dont phone in every 3 days asking whats what, we inform you at every critical point in a case, when the assessment is done, when ure sceduele is done, when we need information ect. This process takes time, and if ure phoneing me every few days im losing that time.

Advice for Nrp's

1) Goes back to "not getting angry" but do not make this statement or any variant of it to me over the phone "IM NOT PAYING", The moment i hear those words from your mouth, im going to be setting up an enforced deduction from earnings, and i dont even have to inform you of it, becuase your telling me in that statement your not going to set up a direct debit, and your not going to be compling, enforced deo's cannot be removed, so however angry you may be, do not tell me this.

I thought that the NRP had to actually not pay to land a DEO?

2) Do not think ignoring us will make it all go away, if i find out ure address, and belive me that is as simple as 4 mouse clicks, i can send you a letter, its called a maintenance enquiry form, youll probly bin it ( if your ignoring us ), thats fine, but that letter basically tells you, your not liable for maintence, so keep ignoring us, the bills are piling up, and when we finally get to the end, well be taking 40% from ure wages, and you wont be informed until you check the cashpoint and see the chunk missing ( if your still ignoring us )

3) Be honest about your wage slips, This is the one thing i dont like to do, but have to if your going to lie about them, basically, if you work overtime irregular or not, im going to have to factor this into your assessment, unless we speak on the phone and you tell me it was a complete one off, and you can show me other slips where theres not been any overtime. This reduces your maintence, as ill DISREGUARD the payslip with overtime on it, and assess you on one with no overtime, However, if you lie to me and i feel somthing is up, for exmaple if i ask for 5 slips and you send me 4 with one missing, im within my rights to go to that employer and request the one that is missing, or all 5 again, if i see overtime ill assume you were trying to hide this fact and be forced to assess you with overtime that is regular, boom, your maintence just went up, becuase you just couldnt be rational.

I can completely understand that this might annoy you because it's sneaky, but surely once you get all five correct payslips all you can do is add them all up and divide them again to get an average. It would be unfair to then take the payslip that had overtime and just do the assessment on this as you seem to be implying?

4) Set up a direct debit, This is both the fastest, most reliable, and easiest to hide from a new partner / employer the fact your paying maintence, If you refuse to give me this info, i HAVE to put a DEO in place, and belive it or belive it not, the csa are actually good at handleing DD's, employers, especially small ones are terrible at them, cases have happend where the money has been deducted from the slips, then kept by employers, or sent to the wrong place, do we blame THEM? no, we blame you, and we want the maintence that was lost back. Just bite the bullet, and set up the DD.

5) If you have a relevant other child or children, tell us, and when you do make sure you know whether ure new partner recives child benefit for them, if she does this is going to reduce your maintence, but for that to happen, we need to know the kids names / ages / CHB numbers, so we can trace them and add them to your case.

6) Variations, the biggest headache in the agency, a Variation is somthing other than shared care and relevant other children that we can take into account. Just let me be clear, you may think fuel costs, travel costs, outgoings, loans, or anything else will class in this, in theory they should, but in reality they never do, if your going to apply for one ask yourself this question.

Is what im paying for benefiting my children and the PWC and not myself, if you can answer honestly yes, you have a claim for a variation, the most common being rent/morgatge of the pwc, its not fair for you to pay this and maintence.

( reminds me of a case where an nrp had paid £4,000 for a pwc boob job and wanted a variation, when asked about this his comments were "well i !!!!ing paid for them, and now her new partner enjoys them!" He didnt get the variation )

It may seem a little like im "having a go" at both sides, im not, this advice if nothing else will speed up your case, which if your an nrp means less arrears, and a pwc it means less time before your first payment. i will update this further if people want me to.

I do think that there is some sensible advice here. It never hurts to be polite and be honest. I do feel, though, that a lot of the attitude that's coming across seems to come from the point of view that all parents dealing with the CSA are just out to cause problems for poor caseworkers. I reckon that most parents are just desperately trying to make sure everything is correct so that their children don't lose out... that said, maybe if I was a caseworker for a few months I'd change my mind.

pretzelnut

I find your postings very arrogant, high and mighty, negative on the main part whilst hiding under the title of ''trying to help''.

PLEASE start writing "your'' instead of Ure, as its making me believe that your not really a CSAworker at all, hence why the long post i had written i thought better off and deleted it.

his_wife

I am shocked, that you can play god with so many peoples lives, by deciding who, you are going to "help or hinder" first.

A lot of emotion is involved when it comes to children, and money ,,, and a lot of both pwc and nrp are devious as too what means they get money, however, that doesnt give you the right, to be so arrogant as to how you go about it.

Not all parents go to csa through choice,,, beleive me it wasnt my first option, it was my last, if i could of come to an agreement, via my ex i would of done so,,, instead of going through the turmoil and terrors of csa.

pretzelnut

All i can say is I wish my case was dealt with instead of being put in a drawer and forgotten about for 14 weeks (not the 1st time either) I was close to losing the roof over my head, at the hands of the CSA and their incompetent staff playing god with my children's lives.

Luckilly i'm all sorted now, my roof is safe, but I'm still waiting on an assessment from the CSA.

My ex and his wife, both on high incomes have had a 8 month maintenance HOLIDAY courtesy of the CSA that they will never have to pay for as it was the CSA who made the error not the ex. How lucky is he?

So saying what the ex and his new wife are getting up to may be irrelevant to you but its extremely relevant to me and my children. So I make no apologies when i cry down the phone with sheer frustration with a service that is supposed to help me, when they've been on holiday abroad for the 4th time this year, and YOU (the CSA) still haven't sorted out my assessment. So that maybe I could take my child on holiday, after all the stress of the CSA we could do with one.