Clearance timescales for child support payments

jjj1980 · 3 June 2018 at 2:15PM

Hi all,

Hoping for some advice on where I can go to challenge the pay,ent clearance timescales being quoted to me by the CMS in regards to payments obtained by the enforcement agents.

Little bit of background - There are currently two separate Liability Orders out with Marstons for collection, one relating to debt built up when the case was with CSA and one for debt built up from the start of the CMS case in January 2017 until mid-November. There is also debt building since then as there are no payment being made towards the ongoing support.

When the enforcement agents manage to get a payment, which is very sporadic despite them constantly agreeing to new weekly arrangements that fail every time, I get told it will take two weeks for the payment to clear within their accounts, a further few days to be transferred to CMS and then up to 10 working days to clear within CMS accounts before it shows on my case. Then it’s a further 48 hours before it reaches my bank account.

I have already questioned this with CMS a number of times and they say it is standard banking clearance times. Which I know to be totally incorrect and have proven this to them. BACS payments which they say is used between Marstons and CMS only take around 72 working hours. If a payment was made by cheque, it would be 6 working days for the cheque to clear. So even if the original payment was made to Marstons by cheque and then they sent a cheque to CMS, it’s only 12 working days at the most clearance time. Whereas payments are taking almost a full month between being paid to Marstons and eventually reaching my bank account.

My local MP is already dealing with trying to get the Complaint Review Team to respond to the complaint that was escalated to them at the start of February and has not yet even been reviewed. The service given by CMS, Marstons and their complaint teams is absolutely useless!

I now want to challenge their quoted payment timescales fully to make them give written justification as to why they hold on to money for so long. I’m just not sure how to go about it.

I have arranged for a manager to call me tomorrow anyway regarding the case handler constantly refusing to give me more than very basic details on the case, for example refusing to tell me how much they have received and when it should be released out to me. Telling me to wait for text messages is not good enough. As the paying parent has a long history of non-compliance, I need to keep up to date on the case as I’ve found the non-payment doesn’t get followed up until I chase CMS.

Other than asking the MP to look into the payment timescales as well, can anyone else suggest what I can do next please?

jimd-f · 4 June 2018 at 10:03AM

CSA/CMS have a contract with Marstons for all the cases that go to these Enforcement Agents.
Marstons make one payment a week to CMS/CSA for all the collections made by them that have cleared into their bank account so depending when the payment is made it can take possibly 10 days before Marstons forward collected money to CMS. that money then needs to be cleared into the correct accounts on the system so payments can be made which should mean around 3 days before the money actually goes out. it then depends on how long your bank takes to process the payment before you can get your hands on it. so, all in all, it can take around 2.5-3 weeks after your ex pays to get your money.
the issue of how much you get is further complicated by the fees Marston charges as there are different ways that Marstons collect their fees depending on whether the case is with CMS or CSA. some cases the fees are taken first and some are taken off each payment and some even after all the arrears on the Liability Order are paid. these are different due to the contracts between CSA/CMS and Marstons and are outwith the control of you, your caseworker or even your MP. this can make it very difficult for some caseworkers to establish exactly how much you will get from any specific payment
the contract with Marstons give them time to collect the monies they are contracted to collect and Marstons will look at the finances of your ex, they have to provide this, and then work out how much they can afford to pay. they want to collect this asap but want regular payments so they get their fees. this is partly the reason that you will not get any payments through CMS while the case is with Marstons as CMS believe that the arrangement with Marstons means that they are collecting as much as possible and your ex will have no money left to pay any more maintenance.
from all this it is most likely that your ex is self employed and the reality is that these are the most difficult cases for CMS to deal with in the short term.
what you should have been told by your caseworker is that once they have a Liability Order the case the goes to Marstons for them to deal with and CMS will diary the case for 3-4 months to let them do their thing and will be reviewed then. they will not monitor it for payments on a weekly basis as that is Marstons job.
once Marstons have decided that the case will produce no results, or fees, they send the case back to CMS for them the take further action.
CMS have further options to then explore which includes doing a full financial check on your ex to see if they have the "ability to pay". this is the fore runner to taking them to court for non payment.
as a general rule of thumb this can take a further 3 months to get the financial picture then a decision will be taken as to whether they have the ability to pay and they then need to prepare court papers. again the general rule is another 3 months.
so you see it can take nearly a year from the case going to the EAs before CMS can get your ex to court where they are given the choice by the judge of making payments or going to jail.
hope this helps in some way to clarify some of your issues, but the bottom line in all of this is that it is your ex that does not want to, or cannot, pay

jjj1980 · 4 June 2018 at 1:38PM

Thank you for the reply but unfortunately, I am already aware of the situation as you describe. It is the timescales involved that I want to fully challenge and get them to review and reassess.

My opinion is that in line with BACS, any Payne t made electronically to he bailiffs will be cleared within 5 working days. It should then be transferred by Faster Payment to CMS which is credited within hours. There is no need for a further clearance payment at CMS. All this does is allow CMS to gain interest whilst the money is in their losing account. The payment should be allocated out within 24 working hours of receipt by CMS and again issued using the Faster Payment Service.

All the background to this case has been going on for 8 years and the Complaint Teams in holding replies have agreed that the actions by Marstons do not and should not prevent payment of the ongoing support. Arrears should be paid on top of the ongoing assessment figures.

I have just received the call from a manager at CMS who has just repeated the same nonsense basically that I have heard a number of times without hem actually answering anything asked of them. Further call will be made to the MP tonight. I will not let this go as there are many casss like mine, some with even higher debts owed and the service the receiving parent receives from CMS and Marstons is disgraceful.

jimd-f · 5 June 2018 at 9:00AM

for matters around the clearance of funds between Marstons/CMS and you these are outwith the control of CMS caseworkers as their actions are governed by the commercial contract between Marstons and CMS and the law as laid down by MPs. so to get any change in these terms will need action in parliament and this is what your MP should be trying to deal with.
re paying the normal maintenance through the CMS and arrears through Marstons at the same time; yes that is what should happen in an ideal world, but as you have discovered if your ex does not want to pay then that situation is just not going to happen.
as an Enforcement caseworker the job is to collect regular sustainable payments to give you a chance to budget your income. Realistically, because Marstons will investigate your ex's income they will be taking as much as they can from him. in practice this means that, despite what we would like to happen, the total your ex can afford to pay is all going to arrears.
the actions by Marstons may not be brilliant but they have a contract to try to collect the money as they don't get paid if they don't collect any.
the actions by CMS ENforcement workers are following CMS policy in that they are following the correct steps to get you money on this case.
you need to remember that you are in this situation because your ex will not pay.
CMS, particularly the Enforcement teams, have improved significantly over the past few years since the new scheme was put in place but the reality is that dealing with a self employed Paying Parent is still a nightmare and takes time before results can be seen.
do you know anything about your ex's current circumstances that could assist CMS to get you money; where does he work, who does he bank with, does he have new relationship, does he own a car. all these little things help CMS to get a picture of your ex's lifestyle and can help in the long term to get your case up to date. I am sure you are aware of this and have updated CMS with what you know but it does not do any harm to update them to any changes in your ex's circumstances.
finally, your ally in your case should be your Enforcement caseworker; you don't need to become best friends with them but I would suggest you try to form a relationship with them and appreciate that they are(normally) doing their best to get you a result within the constraints they are working under.

jjj1980 · 5 June 2018 at 10:38PM

Thanks jimd-f. I really do appreciate the responses.

I feel like I've been dealing with them for so long and I know these things take time.

Yep, I regularly update them if I hear of any changes, spot him driving a different car etc. He is a self-employed private hire driver so it's mostly cash-in-hand work. He rents a room at his friend's house and hires the private hire car from the company he holds his badge with. The last accounts he submitted to HMRC a couple of years ago were very basic and only submitted after HMRC threatened court action. I know this because he telephoned screaming and shouting one night telling me that he was declaring the minimum he could get away with to reduce the child support. I know they are chasing him again as I got a similar call a few weeks ago but with even worse threats. I've sent back four or five documents since the original CSA case started giving information to help the bailiffs. Even photos which I later found out they had to use one day as he opened the door and denied that it was him they were asking for!

I've given details of where he used to bank when we were together, with account details from old paperwork I still had. He stopped paying into his own accounts years ago though when CSA managed to freeze a small sum. He has left employment in the past once DEOs have been set up, stopped claiming JSA when CSA started taking payments from that.

I finally heard from the Complaint Review Team with a promise that the complaint has been finally allocated and will be looked into as of today. The lady has promised to call me again tomorrow after having chance to review the case better. She did say thought that at first glance, it does look as though there could have been a lot more done, much sooner and that the lack of consistent enforcement is a disappointment. Trying not to get my hope up too much but keeping my fingers crossed that this is the start of better action.

Clearance timescales for child support payments

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