Letter to complain about ridiculously low arrears payment

chubsta

Posted for my sister...

Ex-husband always did everything he could to avoid paying child support - he was given full-access but is the poster-boy for 'deadbeat dad' - never interested, would promise Christmas presents that never turned up, days out that never happened etc.
Although CM ended many years ago he is still paying the arrears off, at a current rate of just under £7 per month on a debt of £9850 - it will take 119 years to pay off at that rate so effectively the CS people are saying it is ok for him to never pay it. He has a comfortable life-style.

So, she has complained verbally to CM many times and each time they just say there is nothing that can be done. She spoke yesterday to Citizens Advice who said she should  write a proper letter of complaint, before potentially escalating to local MP to see if there is anything they can do but doesn't know how to word everything - does anyone have an example copy of a letter that made the CM people take notice and actually look into a case properly - their website talks of using bailiffs to recover money etc but despite him driving around in a nice car, nice house etc nothing has ever actually been done to get him to pay what he owes.

Thanks for any help and/or advice.

tightauldgit

There's a process to be followed with CMS. If that process has been followed and they have judged that he only has to pay £7 a month then what else do you expect them to do? 

If you have actual evidence of fraud then present the evidence to CMS - the documentation that you have received from CMS should tell you what to do if you disagree with the decision. 

ZaSa1418

£7 a month is a little low bearing in mind the low rate maintenance is £7 a week. All she can do is complain to the CMS and ask them to re-consider. 

TELLIT01

The rate of payment (amount) will be calculated based on the information provided by the father on their income and outgoings.  Unless it can be proved that the information is incorrect there is little that can be done.  My sister-in-law was in a similar situation and CMS metaphorically shrugged their shoulders and said it is what it is.

[Deleted User]

Does she actually need the money? If it's something she can write off, they please do that. Too many times I've come across mothers chasing child support out of principle and not the fact they need the money. If he's a dead beat dad, maybe he legitimately can't afford to pay a decent amount.

Twixty3

The DWP stated some time ago that up to 75% of maintenance arrears are unenforceable.  

The NAO has repeatedly stated that because of inaccuracies mostly from   years ago is unenforceable and that single parents have been led to believe they are owned large amounts but will not get it.  

The problem is this ( taken from a House of Commons meeting ) 

‘’The House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee (which is the same Parliamentary Committee that recently recommended increasing sanctions on paying parents) was told the following in 2009. You can see the full report here.

Tom Levitt MP asked the following question (Q49 in the document) of a man called Stephen Geraghty (who ran the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission / CSA) at the time.

If there is one group of people that MPs never meet, it is satisfied customers of the CSA because they do not have reason to come to meet us in the first place. My impression is that most of the cases that come across my desk are parents with care with issues of arrears which they want to see addressed. My impression is also that the number coming to me with that situation peaked a few years ago. It has been falling for several years but has gone up recently is the general feeling I get, but particularly what concerns me amongst those people is the number who are coming to me with very large amounts of arrears, say, over £25,000. Is that a general trend, that the size of arrears is getting bigger, and, if so, why does no alarm bell ring when arrears reach a certain level?

Mr Geraghty’s response is horrifying in its admissions and, unless you have a desire to trawl through a lot of pretty boring dialogue you might have missed it:

…Our average arrears across the case load are about £3,000 something. More than half of them are less than a thousand — 56% are less than a thousand — but then there are some very big ones. Typically, the very big ones are what are called interim maintenance assessments where, to frighten people into giving us information, we made an estimate — a process that was used in the 1990s that we do not use any more now — and about £1.2 billion, so almost a third of the total arrears, is these estimates, and most of the very big arrears are these figures which were deliberately made big in order, as I say, to push people into providing data. It works for the Revenue, apparently, but it has not worked for us. When we eventually catch up with these people and get the information, typically we write down that calculation by about 70% because the estimates were very high.

So, there you have it. The CSA made up a huge amount of arrears in the 1990’s and claim not to be doing that anymore. At Voice of the Child we have to say we are exceptionally cynical about just how truthful that statement is given the interactions we have we paying and receiving parents on a regular basis.

Mr Levitt picks up on a problem with the CSA’s approach where he says

What you said earlier about using calculations, in a sense, in order to scare the absent parent, it also lulls the parent with care into a false feeling of confidence that she, as it usually is, is going to get more. She thinks she is going to get so much and she is never going to get that.

It’s an issue about setting expectations of a receiving parent. When they don’t receive the money they are told they are due this surely has the potential to seriously impact the parental relationship passing a corresponding animosity onto the child.’’

https://medium.com/@VOC_ORG/the-3-8billion-question-child-maintenance-arrears-96df7353fcb

The NAO has been reporting in CMS/CSA in in accuracies  many years and it is again mentioned in their latest report. Although there is some improvement now they say