1996 articles
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The quotes provided are normally directly from the original article,
but typically whole sentences and paragraphs are omitted, often without
indicating where the omission is, but without altering the order of presentation.
In some cases people's names are removed, and replaced thus "[X]".
Date & reference |
Extracts (not necessarily contiguous) |
1996-02-02
The Electronic Telegraph
MPs
call on CSA to target fathers who pay nothing
By David Fletcher, Health Services Correspondent
|
TOUGHER action against fathers who fail to pay maintenance for
their children after separating from their wives was urged by the
all-party Parliamentary social security committee yesterday. It
says the agency should stop "picking on soft targets"
- fathers on social security who pay a small sum in maintenance
- and concentrate on the "huge armies of absent fathers"
who refuse to co-operate at all. "It is not action against
parents paying some maintenance which is most demanded. It is, rather,
action against those allowed to cock a snook at the agency, and
taxpayers, by refusing to fill in and return the first communication
sent to them by the CSA."
Robert Hughes, Conservative MP for Harrow West, said: "The
message to absent parents who can pay but won't pay is 'We'll be
after you.' This system is here to stay."
|
1996-02-09
The Electronic Telegraph
Father
too poor to see children takes CSA to Euro-court
By Auslan Cramb, Scottish Correspondent
|
THE Child Support Agency is to be taken to the European Court of
Human Rights by a divorced father who claims he can afford to visit
his sons only once a month since his maintenance payments were doubled.
Henry Logan, 38, from Falkirk, has been granted legal aid by the
European Commission of Human Rights to allow him to challenge the
agency. He is taking the CSA to Strasbourg citing a breach of Article
8 of the convention on human rights, which states: "No public
authority can interfere with the private and family life of an individual."
His solicitor believes that, if he wins the case, it will open
the way for similar claims throughout Britain. "I feel bitter
and angry. The CSA seems to think it is more important I pay extortionate
maintenance than it is for me to see my children."
|
1996-03-??
Runcorn Weekly News
(From NACSA
BOTD)
|
A soldier being pursued by the Child Support Agency was found hanging
in his bedroom, an inquest at Warrington heard. Kingsman [X] had
been contacted by the CSA after a woman claimed he was the father
of her child, the inquest was told. Mr [X], aged 22, of Greebridge
Road, Runcorn, was found by his mother hanging from a hook in his
bedroom while on leave.
The inquest heard that Mr [X] had been seeing a girl for two years
and was very happy. But then he had a one night stand
with another woman. He joined the army soon after and split up with
his girlfriend. But the other woman then began to contact him claiming
he was the father of her child. A fellow soldier, [Y], said: "[X]
was worried about the amount of money he would have to pay to the
CSA."
|
1996-03-11
The Electronic Telegraph
CSA
rule changes to allow for cost of travel
By Julie Kirkbride, Political Correspondent
|
ABSENT parents who travel long distances to keep in contact with
their children are to have their maintenance assessments reduced
in a series of Child Support Agency reforms to be unveiled by ministers
tomorrow. Andrew Mitchell, the minister for the CSA, has included
this long-held grievance in a new appeals system which will allow
absent parents to recover some costs not currently permitted under
the rigid maintenance formula.
The package, which allows other special expenses, such as the cost
of travelling to work, long-term illness, and some debt, is expected
to cost the Exchequer £10 million a year. At present, statistics
on how many parents have to undertake long-distance visits are scant.
A 1989 survey by the Department of Social Security showed that of
parents paying maintenance, around 15 per cent lived a "long
way" away, while some 75 per cent lived locally, or within
the same postcode.
|
1996-03-14
The Electronic Telegraph
Defects
in CSA 'still causing injustices'
By David Fletcher, Health Services Correspondent
|
DEFECTS in the Child Support Agency are still causing injustice
to hundreds of parents, William Reid, Parliamentary Ombudsman, says
today. In his second report on the agency, he says there are still
too many cases of mistaken identity, inadequate procedures, delays
and confusion in the assessment and review of child maintenance.
Faults included confusion over procedures, breaches of confidentiality,
delays in maintenance requests, problems with interim maintenance
assessments and failure to take prompt action to enforce payment.
The result was that opportunities to obtain money from absent parents
were lost and delays occurred in passing cash to mothers from the
absent father.
|
1996-03-26
The Electronic Telegraph
CSA
pledges £100 payout to victims of its blunders
By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent
|
THE Child Support Agency is to pay automatic compensation of £100
to people wrongly sent maintenance assessment forms under measures
intended to improve efficiency announced yesterday. An independent
complaints examiner is also to be appointed later this year, and
more generous provision is to be introduced for compensating clients
that suffer from administrative delays. They will come into effect
from April 1 as part of a programme to boost the effectiveness of
the CSA and rid it of the reputation for incompetence. Further changes
are likely later this year with new regulations for simplifying
the way housing costs are calculated in assessing maintenance payments.
Ministers deny they have been spurred into action by the recent
Parliamentary Ombudsman's report highlighting cases of maladministration
going back to 1993. The £100 "consolatory" payment
is intended to compensate people for possible upset and inconvenience
in cases where the CSA sends a form to a person who is not the parent
of the child in question.
|
1996-04-03
The Electronic Telegraph
Silent
mothers to lose more benefit
By Joy Copley, Political Staff
|
SINGLE mothers who refuse to name the fathers of their children
to the Child Support Agency face benefit cuts of up to £20
a week. Frank Field, the committee's chairman, has indicated that
he supports the move against parents who "collude against the
taxpayer". Women who refuse to co-operate are already punished
by having 20 per cent of their £46.50 a week personal allowance
docked for six months and 10 per cent for the next 12 months. It
is now proposed to increase this to 40 per cent indefinitely.
The DSS believes that the benefits are much abused: where it refuses
to accept that women have good cause to be afraid of naming the
father, only a few appeal against the decision. Many then withdraw
their claims for benefit, raising suspicion of fraud. Only one in
25 mothers whose benefit is cut complains of hardship, which suggests
they may have other income, possibly from absent fathers colluding
against the Agency.
|
1996-05-16
Electronic Telegraph
CSA
complaints 'still pouring in'
By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent
|
COMPLAINTS about the Child Support Agency are still "pouring
in" to the ombudsman despite government claims of improvements,
MPs were told yesterday. William Reid, the Parliamentary Commissioner
for Administration, said there was no sign of a let up in the volume
of complaints from the public. He expected the growth to continue
over the forthcoming year. Half of all the complaints accepted for
investigation by the ombudsman last year referred to the Department
of Social Security, a substantial increase on previous levels. The
CSA accounted for a third of that number.
Ministers recently announced that the CSA would pay £100
compensation to people wrongly sent maintenance assessment forms.
It would also pay interest on late payments, after a highly critical
report from the ombudsman. MPs privately expressed dissatisfaction
with the level of compensation and the government's failure to make
it retrospective before April this year.
James Pawsey, Tory chairman of the select committee, yesterday
attacked an 18-month delay in appointing an independent complaints
examiner. He claimed that official figures disclosing 1,962 complaints
in March showed that there had been no substantial improvement in
the agency's handling of its affairs since the period covered by
the ombudsman's report.
|
1996-06-07
Rochdale Express
(From NACSA
BOTD)
|
A father-of-two who was found dead in a fume filled car outside
his Heywood girlfriends home was being pursued by the Child
Support Agency. Police discovered several payment demands from the
CSA strewn about the Ford Orion car in which [X] was found slumped.
A pipe had been fixed from the inside to the exhaust. At an inquest
in Rochdale this week deputy coroner Dennis Everett did not disclose
the contents of the tape. But he added: "Papers from the CSA
for monies outstanding were found in the car."
|
1996-06-28
South Wales Argus
(From NACSA
BOTD)
|
The CSA came under fire from Gwent coroner Mr David Bowen yesterday,
for causing the death of a young father from Chepstow, whose body
was found in his fume-filled car. He said notes left by [X], of
Wyedean, made it clear that letters from the CSA and a court appearance
due the following week, were the triggers for his actions. He went
on: "For some months prior to his death he had needed psychiatric
help, which he refused. That mental condition was in no small part
brought about by demands from the CSA "He had received a letter
from the CSA asking him to appear in court, then another letter
adjourned the hearing until the Thursday after his death. I was
concerned about the effect this appearance might have on him. It
had been playing on his mind for some time."
|
1996-07-17
The Electronic Telegraph
Report
on CSA finds £900m is uncollected
By Philip Johnston, Home Affairs Editor
|
NEARLY £900 million in maintenance payments demanded by the
Child Support Agency remains uncollected, Government spending watchdogs
said yesterday. Much of the debt will never be recovered, claimed
the National Audit Office. Only half the absent parents on the CSA's
books were paying any maintenance at all. And only 20 per cent were
handing over the full amount assessed by the agency. The office
issued a qualified audit of the CSA's accounts because there was
insufficient evidence to determine the financial effect of inaccurate
maintenance assessments.
Arrears often build up because of the delays in issuing full assessments
for maintenance because the amount due is back-dated to when inquiry
forms were sent out. Some absent parents face demands of £1,000
or more. The auditors found that the CSA had improved its accuracy
but could still improve. Errors ranged from £30-a-week under-assessments
to £20-a-week over-assessments. The causes ranged from arithmetical
mistakes to use of old information in calculating earnings and income.
|
1996-08-05
The Electronic Telegraph
CSA
given right to see bank accounts
By Liz Lightfoot
|
BANKS are being forced to disclose confidential information about
customers' finances to the Child Support Agency. Disclosure of sensitive
details of charge cards and credit card bills can now be demanded
by men or women challenging the incomes declared by their former
partners in an effort to increase maintenance payments. The development
follows a four-year struggle by Terri West, a mother of two from
Stanmore, north London. She worked tirelessly to challenge her ex-husband's
declared income to the CSA after being dissatisfied with the level
of maintenance set. She was so disgruntled at the way the CSA treated
her that last week she went before a special tribunal set up to
review her dealings with the agency. On her application, the tribunal
issued a witness summons against an assistant manager of Coutts
& Co, her ex-husband's bank.
The British Bankers' Association confirmed last night that this
was the first time a bank had been compelled to give confidential
customer details to a CSA tribunal. Brian Capon, for the BBA, said:
"Banks will only give information when compelled to do so legally
through a court order or where they record a bad debt on the default
register."
|
1996-08-21
The Electronic Telegraph
CSA
complaints keep pouring in
By Robert Shrimsley, Chief Political Correspondent
|
THE Child Support Agency was rebuked yesterday by the public service
watchdog after he said that complaints were at the same level as
last year despite the agency's promise to improve its record. Sir
William Reid, the parliamentary ombudsman, responsible for investigating
allegations of maladministration, expressed his disappointment at
the number of complaints, which he said was preventing him from
devoting resources to other areas of criticism. He noted that in
the first half of 1996 he had received 240 complaints, only three
fewer than he had in the same period last year. This represented
25 per cent of all the complaints against Government departments
referred to him in the first half of this year. He said that most
complaints "continue to reveal the same recurring faults in
administration - inaccuracy, delays in dealing with correspondence,
failures to return telephone calls. I find disappointing the fact
that I am continuing to receive such a high level of complaints
against the agency".
|
1996-08-31
Electronic Telegraph
CSA
refunds payments man hid from wife
By Carole Cadwalladr
|
A MARRIED man paid more than £4,500 towards the upkeep of
a child that was not his because he was too scared to admit to his
wife that he had been accused of having an affair. [X], 37, of Sale,
Greater Manchester, started making the payments six years ago when
a colleague named him as the father of her child. Although he insists
that there had never been anything between them, he was frightened
that his wife, [Y], would not believe him and decided to pay the
cash rather then fight his case and risk her finding out. This week,
he was refunded £4,552.60 after a DNA test proved the child
could not be his. He claims that spiralling debts almost ruined
his marriage and twice drove him to attempt suicide. He sold his
car and put his house up for sale. Finally, in August of last year,
Mrs [Y], 35, found out about the Child Support Agency payments.
She said: "[X] had been taking £10 out of the bank every
week and paying the CSA money through the Post Office so I didn't
have a clue. Mr [X], a factory worker, believed he would have had
to suffer an embarrassing court case to establish his innocence
and found out he could take a DNA test only in February. Mr [X]
said it took eight weeks to establish he could not have fathered
the child because the mother initially refused for it to go ahead.
A spokesman for the CSA in Manchester said yesterday: "When
a question of paternity is resolved and the alleged absent parent
is proven not to be the father, any payments will be refunded in
full."
|
1996-10-13
The Electronic Telegraph
Drive
ban to make absent fathers pay
By Julie Kirkbride, Social Affairs Editor
|
FATHERS who fail to pay Child Support Agency maintenance demands
could lose their driving licence under radical plans being examined
by Peter Lilley, the Social Security Secretary. Social security
ministers believe that threatening absent parents with the loss
of their driving licence could prove a powerful sanction against
the 57,200 absent parents who have managed to avoid paying any of
their child support demands since the agency was established in
1993. The sanction would be designed to frighten primarily middle-class
non-paying parents where the loss of their licence would mean that
they would not be insured when driving their car. Whitehall estimates
suggest that recovering the debts could recoup up to £300
million for the Treasury.
Confiscation of driving licences for so-called "deadbeat-dads"
who do not pay any maintenance has recently been introduced as a
United States federal law by President Clinton.
During the summer Andrew Mitchell, the minister responsible for
the CSA, visited some of the American states where the removal of
driving licences has already been introduced as a means of scaring
debtor parents into compliance. So far Maine has been the most successful
state, collecting about £27 million in overdue payments since
1993, while revoking just 66 licences.
|
1996-10-30
The Electronic Telegraph
Labour
plans CSA cash 'reward'
By Jon Hibbs, Political Correspondent
|
CASH incentives are to be offered to single mothers who co-operate
with the Child Support Agency under Labour plans to be unveiled
today designed to get lone parents back into work. Harriet Harman,
shadow social security spokesman, proposes to change the benefit
rules so that single mothers on income support can keep some of
the maintenance recovered from absent fathers. At present any maintenance
payments obtained by the agency are clawed back, pound for pound,
from the benefit to which lone parents are entitled, leaving many
no better off financially. Introducing a "maintenance disregard"
is intended to tackle the financial disincentive to co-operate.
Labour says the agency has such a bad reputation for late or irregular
payment of maintenance claims that many single mothers are worse
off than before.
|
1996-11-06
The Electronic Telegraph
CSA
chief resigns after two years
By David Fletcher, Health Correspondent
|
ANN CHANT, head of the Child Support Agency, is to resign just
over two years after she was appointed to reorganise the much-criticised
government body. Miss Chant, 51, was appointed to the CSA on an
18-month contract, which had been extended once. She will remain
in the £64,000-a-year post until next spring. She succeeded
Ros Hepplewhite, the first CSA chief executive, who issued a public
apology for "unacceptable standards" when she left after
only 18 months. Andrew Mitchell, Social Security minister, said
Miss Chant had been a "first-rate chief executive who has turned
around the performance of the agency through firm, clear management.
In the first six months of this year, the CSA collected more than
four times as much maintenance as it did in 1994, the year of her
appointment." Miss Chant said: "My time at the CSA has
been challenging. I am pleased I will be leaving my successor an
agency that has a steadily improving performance." Last week
MPs voiced reservations about the CSA's performance and accused
ministers and Miss Chant of continued complacency.
|
1996-12-08
The Sunday Times Magazine
Father Figures
(This is an extract of a much larger article).
|
Three men sitting in a country pub.
Paul: I had 'em in court in January on five counts of negligence.
What they did was they assessed me at £2.50 a week. The mistake
was they assessed me on my service pension, not on my wages. Not
once but twice. I'm actually going to them saying I'm not paying
enough. Then they say it's so small it's not worth collecting at
all. Great. We booked a holiday. Eight days later I got two assessments.
One was £79 a week backdated and the arrears had to be paid
in 10 days. £6500.
Peter: I don't think the CSA is capable of getting an assessment
right.
The three men are late 30s, early 40s. They have never met before.
Paul appears to have come straight from work; a company identity
card swings from his neck on a chain. He is wearing an anorak and
has a bulky shoulder bag, which contains his case papers. There
is tension in his face. He seems angry. He lights a small cigar
from a flat tin. Kevin is with his new partner, Jan. They have a
mobile phone and a handful of papers in a buff envelope: Kevin's
case. Kevin lacks Paul's intensity and there is a tiredness about
him - how did it come to this? He and Jan had sat in the pub a week
earlier, waiting for everyone else to arrive. Nobody did because
they had the wrong night. This is probably the story of Kevin's
life at the moment.
Peter a ruddy-faced Home Counties man, is their host. He is the
organiser of the Thames Valley branch of Families Need Fathers,
which meets every other Monday at this pub in Maidenhead, just off
the M4, the Pig in Hiding. He chose it for its convenience. The
decor is very much pig-led but nobody pays it much attention.
[snip]
Peter: The idea behind it is right. Fathers are responsible for
their children. But that means time and money, not just money, and
also, this is where the whole thing's fallen down: the CSA isn't
getting the money to the children. What it's doing is reimbursing
the DSS. The principle's all wrong.
[snip]
Some observations about Paul and Kevin and all the other Pauls
and Kevins: getting entangled with the CSA drives people to distraction
and beyond. They become obsessed. They build thick dossiers of papers,
they make photocopies, they write angry letters to the head of the
CSA and expect a reply. they get even angrier when the head of the
CSA does not reply. They go to their MPs, who write even more letters
on their behalf. MPs can hardly move in their own surgeries for
CSA cases. But at least they can get replies from the head of the
CSA. Ann Chant, the outgoing chief executive, had to set up her
own Parliamentary Business Unit to deal with them. The CSA is very
confusing, and nobody can really understand it. Every individual
case is subject to the same formula for calculating maintenance
payments, irrespective of the circumstances. There are some grounds
for departure and there have been some modifications, but essentially
the formula is rigid.
[snip]
The CSA is divisive. Men regard it as a stick that their ex uses
to beat them. It seems to them that ex-wives confuse payment with
access to children. If they do not play ball with the former, then
they will be frozen out of the latter. It is hard enough trying
to maintain a father-child relationship after a separation without
all the bitterness the maintenance payments cause. This affects
the stability of new relationships men may form, the second families
they may start. Many men simply give up trying. There is statistical
evidence that just under half of all men who go through a separation
lose contact with their children at some stage. There is further
statistical evidence that they are happier than the ones who continue
contact. Isn't that sad? Not least for their children. Some men,
probably more than those who are able to admit it, say they start
resenting their children. Though it is hardly the children's fault.
Many men do not believe that the maintenance money the CSA demands
from them is going to their children. In lots of cases they are
absolutely right. Three-quarters of all single mothers are on benefit.
The money collected from their ex-partners by the CSA is not passed
on to them: it goes straight into the Treasury coffers. If the mothers
do not co-operate with the CSA, a proportion of their benefit is
cut as a punishment. Men do not understand why money collected from
them as "child support" does not even reach their child.
Even if the money the men are paying is getting through, many of
them believe it is going to finance the lifestyle of their ex-wife.
They think they are being asked to pay too much. They resent the
fixed formula, the relentless, unbending, impersonal style of the
CSA. They resent the identical paragraphs that appear in CSA letters.
"I realise this will be a disappointing reply but..."
is a notoriously common irritant. They resent the CSA's dehumanising
jargon that labels them AP (absent parent), as opposed to PWC (parent
with care).
[snip]
We are not talking here about a group of awkward men who will not
face up to their responsibilities. Those men exist. They have always
existed. Nor is this about rich men, millionaires who won't pay
maintenance for their children - though, God knows, they also exist.
Too many men have made too many women suffer in the aftermath of
divorce and separation. It has always been that way. This is about
the massed ranks of middle England: policemen, firemen, telephone
engineers, steel workers, coach drivers, office workers; the ever-increasing
number of men whose lives are touched by increasing number of men
whose lives are touched by the CSA and who are being drawn to participate
in a campaign of civil disobedience.
[snip]
Three days after my night at the Pig in Hiding I spent the evening
in a room upstairs at the Black Horse in Milton Keynes. The local
branch of NACSA (Network Against the Child Support Act) meets here
every other Thursday. The room was full. Single men, men with their
new partners, middle-class men, working-class men, very young men
who still lived at home with their mums, middle-aged men. Men who
seemed pretty objectionable - "If I have to throw a few grand
at my ex, well, you know what they're like: she's more interested
in money than anything else" - and men who seemed very angry,
including one who, if anything, was angrier than Paul. He made the
same jokes as Paul, too. "I'm sure we've got the same ex-wife,"
he cracked on with another man at one point. He had been sent a
demand for £9000, with seven days to pay. He had tried phoning
the CSA about it but had been told what he described as "the
usual crap". As far as the CSA was concerned, he said, he was
the lowest form of life. He said that more than once: we're the
lowest form of life.
[snip]
Several men had come to the meeting with blank assessment forms.
They were at the beginning of their dealings with the CSA: they
had been sent a form and could not work out how to fill it in. The
advice to them was not to ignore the form. They might have got away
with that once, but not now. You could stick your head in the sand
before and hope the CSA would forget all about you. The CSA was
not that inefficient any more. Fill in most of it, send it back,
but ask lots of delaying, pertinent questions that could not be
construed as time-wasting. Try to massage the figures. If you're
living with a new partner, she could be charging you an exorbitant
rent. Housing costs could not be disregarded in the assessment formula.
[snip]
One man told me that all this business with the CSA had made him
begin to resent his children. It was another echo of earlier encounters
with CSA clients.
[snip]
A few days earlier, I am sitting in the small, cramped office of
a family law expert in Caerphilly, South Wales. I am a fly on the
wall while the lawyer, Anthea Guthrie, sees her CSA clients. A middle-aged
couple come in. He is clutching a CSA notice that he is about to
have a Deduction of Earnings Order imposed because he has maintenance
arrears. The dates when he is accused of not paying are listed.
The odd thing is, his child is now out at work and he has been told
his case is closed. Luckily, he had kept some records and after
an anxious weekend's search he has found receipts proving that he
paid the money on the dates the CSA says he didn't pay. Guthrie
phones the CSA there and then, speaks to a child support officer.
The officer concedes that a mistake appears to have been made. The
dates are wrong. It may be, in fact, that the man does not owe any
money at all. He agrees that the DEO needs to be reassessed. Guthrie
asks if, in the meantime, the DEO can be cancelled. No, absolutely
not, comes the reply. Not until the case has been reviewed. This
seems unbelievable to me, but Guthrie is unfazed. She says she has
gone past anger. The man folds up his CSA letter and leaves with
his new partner.
[snip]
So I can tell you that there is a crisis of morale among CSA staff
and that they believe the position is irrecoverable. Nobody seems
to have expected the sudden announcement last month that chief executive
Ann Chant was leaving to take up another post. When she took the
job in September 1994, a close colleague of hers said that if Chant
could not sort out the CSA, nobody could. Staff feel that the stress
they have experienced working for the CSA has not been addressed
by management. They are fed up with the shortcomings of their computer.
They are unhappy that there is talk of privatising the CSA. Will
all the confidential information they hold be passed into private
hands? The abuse they receive is unrelenting. It seems as if it
is there in every phone call. There are stories of razor blades
and dog s*** being sent in the post. There are stories, in small
communities, of staff being harassed and threatened at home. The
CSA wants them to give full names to clients to make the service
more personal. Their union advises them to give first names only
for protection. There is no special training for dealing with angry,
distressed or suicidal clients. There is supposed to be a sensitive
case officer who deals with the sensitive cases, but it is not clear
that they have had specialist training either.
[snip]
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