Child Support Agency
Encyclopedia
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and the Department for Social Development
Department for Social Development
The Department for Social Development is a devolved Northern Ireland government department in the Northern Ireland Executive. The minister with overall responsibility for the department is the Minister for Social Development.-Aim:...
in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
. Launched on April 5, 1993, the CSA is responsible for implementing the 1991 Child Support Act and subsequent legislation.
Overview
Child supportChild support
In family law and public policy, child support is an ongoing, periodic payment made by a parent for the financial benefit of a child following the end of a marriage or other relationship...
, or child maintenance, is the contribution from a non-resident parent towards the financial cost of raising their child, paid to the person with whom the child lives, (usually the other parent), referred to as "person/parent with care". The level and conditions of payment can either be mutually agreed between the two parties, or, in case of disagreement, decided by legal means.
Prior to the launch of the CSA, child support disputes were handled by a court based system. This system did not have the power to trace absent parents, and was criticised as "arbitrary and unfair". Nevertheless, the transfer of what had previously been a judicial issue of family law
Family law
Family law is an area of the law that deals with family-related issues and domestic relations including:*the nature of marriage, civil unions, and domestic partnerships;...
to a government agency was considered to "represent a significant break with the past." The CSA was given the task of assessing payments to ensure consistency, with the powers to collect, enforce and distribute the maintenance payments itself.
Functions and involvement
The CSA's function is twofold, encompassing calculation of how much child maintenance is due (based on current legislationLegislation
Legislation is law which has been promulgated by a legislature or other governing body, or the process of making it...
and rules) and collection, enforcement and transferral of the payment from the non-resident parent to the person with care.
For the CSA to become involved in a case, their services must be requested by one of the parents. Legislation also allows children in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
to initiate a case against one or both Non-Resident Parents.
The CSA cannot get involved, even upon request, if the non-resident parent lives abroad, if a written agreement
Contract
A contract is an agreement entered into by two parties or more with the intention of creating a legal obligation, which may have elements in writing. Contracts can be made orally. The remedy for breach of contract can be "damages" or compensation of money. In equity, the remedy can be specific...
made prior to April 5, 1993, is in place, or if a court order
Court order
A court order is an official proclamation by a judge that defines the legal relationships between the parties to a hearing, a trial, an appeal or other court proceedings. Such ruling requires or authorizes the carrying out of certain steps by one or more parties to a case...
regarding maintenance was made before March 3, 2003. (except in cases where the parent with care claims Income Support or Jobseekers Allowance).
Calculation and systems
A new method of child maintenance calculation came into effect on March 3, 2003. The previous method used a "complex formula of up to 108 pieces of information", by first calculating the total child maintenance required based on the children's ages, then calculating the non-resident parents income after various allowanceAllowance
Allowance may refer to:*Allowance *Allowances in accounting, see Accounts receivable*Personal allowance in the United Kingdom's taxing system* Jobseeker's Allowance, a term for unemployment benefit in the United Kingdom* EU Allowances...
s were subtracted, and finally working out what portion of the calculated maintenance was to be paid by the non-resident parent, based on their income.
Under the new method the basis for calculating maintenance has been simplified, with a fixed percentage
Percentage
In mathematics, a percentage is a way of expressing a number as a fraction of 100 . It is often denoted using the percent sign, “%”, or the abbreviation “pct”. For example, 45% is equal to 45/100, or 0.45.Percentages are used to express how large/small one quantity is, relative to another quantity...
of the non-resident parents net income
Net income
Net income is the residual income of a firm after adding total revenue and gains and subtracting all expenses and losses for the reporting period. Net income can be distributed among holders of common stock as a dividend or held by the firm as an addition to retained earnings...
being taken, from 15% for one child, 20% for two, and 25% for three or more. Where maintenance is calculated using the basic rate, the amount of maintenance is also reduced if the non-resident parent has children in their current family. Where this is relevant, the CSA will not take into account: 15% of their net weekly income if there is one child living with them, 20% if they are two children living with them, and 25% for three or more.
Criticism
The Independent Case Examiner’s Office was set up in 1997 as an independent body to deal with complaints about the CSA. Three recurring themes are mentioned in multiple previous annual reports, namely delay (51% of complaints in 2004-2005), error (24% of complaints in 2004-2005) and No Action Taken (14% of complaints in 2004-2005). According to Department for Work and Pensions statistics, the average length of time for a case to be cleared under the new scheme has increased from an average of 18 days in March 2003, to 287 in December 2005.Updated statistics published in the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission Annual Report and Accounts 2010/11 showed that, whilst payments were being made in 65% of CSA cases for the year April 2006 – March 2007, this had increased to 78% by March 2011.
Assessments based on the same financial criteria can give different results, depending on which rules the case is judged under. Non-resident parents who would pay less under the new rules currently cannot get reassessed, except in special circumstances. While the CSA plan to eventually move everyone to the same system, in the interim different people with the same current situation will pay different amounts, based solely on when the case was first assessed. One father, Mark Cook, whose monthly payments would drop from £250 to £150 if assessed under the new rules, is taking the CSA to the European Court of Human Rights
European Court of Human Rights
The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg is a supra-national court established by the European Convention on Human Rights and hears complaints that a contracting state has violated the human rights enshrined in the Convention and its protocols. Complaints can be brought by individuals or...
, claiming that this discrepancy amounts to discrimination
Discrimination
Discrimination is the prejudicial treatment of an individual based on their membership in a certain group or category. It involves the actual behaviors towards groups such as excluding or restricting members of one group from opportunities that are available to another group. The term began to be...
under Article 14. However, official statistics show that the average weekly liability is slightly more under the new scheme. For the years 2006-2007, the average new scheme liability was constantly £23 per week, whereas the old scheme varied from £22 to £23.
In November 2004, the head of the CSA resigned amid widespread criticism of the CSA systems. Sir Archy Kirkwood, chairman of Work and Pensions Committee, described the situation as "a systemic, chronic failure of management right across the totality of the agency." In November 2005, Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
admitted that the CSA is "not properly suited" to its job, amid reports that for every £1.85 that gets through to children, the CSA spend £1 on administration.
Even prior to its opening, the CSA was subject to criticism, with MP David Tredinnick describing the CSA as a "sequel to 1984
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is a dystopian novel about Oceania, a society ruled by the oligarchical dictatorship of the Party...
" due to concerns about "CSA Snooping". In February 2006, Work Secretary John Hutton asked Sir David Henshaw to redesign the child support system with three key areas of focus; how best to ensure parents take financial responsibility for their children when they are apart, the best arrangements for delivering this outcome cost effectively and the options for moving to new structures and policies, recognising the need to protect the level of service offered to the current 1.5 million parents with care. This was announced when Work Secretary John Hutton stated that the CSA's performance was "unacceptable", and announced that it would be reviewed. Sir David Henshaw was to report his findings before the parliamentary summer recess and subsequently Sir David Henshaw's Report to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions - Recovering Child Support: routes to responsibility was compiled.
The situation eventually got so bad, that on Monday 24 July 2006, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is a post in the British Cabinet, responsible for the Department for Work and Pensions. It was created on 8 June 2001 by the merger of the Employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security.The Ministry...
John Hutton
John Hutton (Labour MP)
John Matthew Patrick Hutton, Baron Hutton of Furness is a British Labour Party politician who was the Member of Parliament for Barrow and Furness in Cumbria from 1992 to 2010, and has served in a number of Cabinet offices, including Defence Secretary and Business Secretary...
MP, announced that the CSA was not working and as a result would be axed and replaced by a "smaller, more focused" body.
For those where 50/50 shared care agreements are in place further issues have arisen often creating bitterness, fuelling arguments and generally breaking down goodwill between the parents. An example where both parents are gainfully employed yet one parent has to pay the other parent a percentage of their income. Many consider this unfair as one parent is simply collecting money from the other when they are more than capable of paying their own share. The argument being that if both parents share care and both parent pay 50% of all shared costs why would one parent have to provide the other parent with more money? The government refuse to answer this, but re-enforce with defining parent with care is the one that receives the child benefit, again unfairely attributed to only one parent where there is 50/50 shared care, and therefore CSA must be paid to the parent with care. The government refuse to answer this also; using each to argue for the other. Thus leave many children with one parent disadvantaged, and therefore the child disadvantaged whilst in that disadvantaged parent's care.
Outstanding debt
CSA arrears accumulated since 1993 totals just under £3.8bn. This rounded headline total remains largely unchanged since 2008.Replacement
In December 2006, the Department for Work and PensionsDepartment for Work and Pensions
The Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security and headed by the Secretary of State for Work and...
released its Child Support white paper
White paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
outlining its plans for the future of Child Support.
On 1 November 2008 the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission took management responsibility for the CSA.
In October 2011 the Department for Work and Pensions
Department for Work and Pensions
The Department for Work and Pensions is the largest government department in the United Kingdom, created on June 8, 2001 from the merger of the employment part of the Department for Education and Employment and the Department of Social Security and headed by the Secretary of State for Work and...
launched a public consultation on plans to abolish CMEC and transfer its functions back to the Department.
Staff
Child Support Agency Board Members (as of June 2006) included:- Stephen Geraghty, Chief Executive
- Richard Arthur, Non-Executive Director and Chair
- Mark Grimshaw, Strategic Programme Director
- Ron Eagle, Information System/Information Technology Director
- Alan Hardy, Finance and Business Assurance Director
- Susan Park, Operations Director
- Ian Pavey, Human Resources Director
- Jonathan Portes, Director of Children and Poverty
- Hilary Reynolds, Client and Stakeholder Relationships Director and Deputy Chief
- John Cross, Non-Executive Director
- Bryan Foss, Non-Executive Director
- Bill Griffiths, Non-Executive Director
- Peter Holden, Non-Executive Director
- Susan Jillings, Non-Executive Director