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"Do you accept the definition of yourselves given by some members to quote from the Independent on Sunday who "openly describe themselves as `pocket revolutionaries'"?" (Mr Dismore to Andy Farquarson)
"According to the Independent on Sunday: "One newsletter advises absent fathers that a good way of avoiding detection is to be portrayed as a violent man who must not be contacted by the CSA because the mother is too frightened. `Showing CSA officials the damage done to the house by an ex-partner (broken windows, etc) will usually have an instant effect and if communication is being conducted by letter a photograph will certainly help.'" According to this it is members of the organisation who openly describe themselves as "pocket revolutionaries". If that is the case is your revolution against the CSA or against parents with care or against the children?" (Mr Pond to Andy Farquarson)
"You are here as a representative of that organisation.... But you are asking this Committee to take account of your evidence in the context in which, as we hear, the organisation is somewhat opposed to whatever formula would be found for the payment of maintenance." (Mr Pond to Andy Farquarson)
These quotes are from Hansard - the 10th Report of the Social Security Select Committee 1999-2000, during presentation of evidence by NACSA's immediate past chairman on September 15th 1999.
I was 2 or 3 yards behind Andy Farquarson when he was interrogated as above. This shows how NACSA's attempts to be taken seriously as a lobby group could be diverted by knowledge of its "protest" and "revolutionary" activities.
This suggests that lobby groups need to distance themselves from "terrorist" or "revolutionary" activities in order to maintain credibility. The following shows why.
(Items in red and blue are commented upon at the end).
"Dads wage guerrilla war on CSA"
By Rachel Sylvester, political editor
Independent on Sunday - 8th August 1999
A GROUP of disgruntled fathers has launched a campaign to undermine the Child Support Agency by circulating information on dodges and devices to avoid maintenance payments. These include unscrupulous suggestions on how to persuade ex-wives to lie to the authorities - and how to fool the authorities into thinking that they are violent.
The National Association for Child Support Action (NACSA) produces regular newsletters and a website advising fathers how to delay, reduce or avoid contributions to the CSA.
CSA officials, who have compiled a dossier on the organisation, believe that some of the tips could be interpreted as incitement to break the law.
Ministers at the Department of Social Security are also aware of the group and have ensured that many of the loopholes it identifies will be closed when new legislation is introduced later this year. "Their activities are extra-legal if not illegal," one senior government source said.
One newsletter advises absent fathers that a good way of avoiding detection is to be portrayed as a violent man who must not be contacted by the CSA because the mother is too frightened. "Showing CSA officials the damage done to the house by an ex-partner (broken windows, etc) will usually have an instant effect and if communication is being conducted by letter a photograph will certainly help," it says.
Another advocates persuading the child's mother to deny to the CSA that she knows who the father is - in return for direct, but smaller payments. "We heard of one ex-partner who claimed to have done the rounds of many dubious parties (or was it a Club Med holiday?). It turned out the father could have been any one of a dozen or more men. She tried to be helpful by supplying a long list of possible names. Of course she was keen to co-operate, but it was so embarrassing."
The group's members - mostly fathers who have been targeted by the CSA - openly describe themselves as "pocket revolutionaries" deploying guerrilla tactics against the system. A recent publication from the group warns: "NACSA cannot guarantee its accuracy, usefulness or even legality and reminds readers that any decision to make use of the information is theirs alone."
Other publications advise absent fathers to reduce their declared income and increase their declared outgoings as much as possible. Under the heading "controlling your salary", one newsletter describes a man who asked his company for a loan to cover "unforeseen expenses" in his private life. The company agreed and took monthly payments out of his salary, leaving a reduced amount on the payslips assessed by the CSA. The document also suggests taking out a variable mortgage so contributions can be bumped up dramatically just before the CSA assesses the father's housing costs.
The group also offers tips on delaying the introduction of CSA payments, including failing to return documents or "forgetting" to include relevant information. One idea is to return CSA correspondence, unopened, with the words "gone away" or "not known at this address" emblazoned across it.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham, the minister responsible for the CSA, said the Government was concerned about a small group of hardliners working "at the edge" of the law. "Most men are decent and want to support their children but there are a core of people who do not want to pay and are seeking to duck and avoid and we will get tough on those," she said.
Maeve Sherlock, director of the National Council for One Parent Families, said she was "appalled" by some of NACSA's activities. "There will always be some cases of genuine hardship but anyone trying to persuade non-resident parents to avoid paying child support when they can afford to pay it is deeply irresponsible," she said.
Items in red
The quotes in red from the NACSA document are suggestions about how to make the parent with care and the children better off in spite of government attempts to prevent them becoming better off!
The current CSA scheme uses all the child support, when the parent with care is on Income Support, to reduce the expenditure on Income Support - none of it makes the parent with care or the children better off. (In fact, it is likely to make them worse off, because if the nonresident parent was paying "on the side" before, this is likely to cease once CSA payments are due). The quotes in red from Baroness Hollis and Maeve Sherlock give the impression that what is being advocated is for fathers not to pay money towards the welfare of their children. In fact, where the parent with care is on Income Support, this is naive or simply "spin". It would be much harder to gain public support for a scheme that for about 40% of cases (about 400,000 parents with care and about 630,000 children) had nothing whatsoever to do with helping lone parents and children.
What NACSA was advocating in the red text was that mothers and fathers conspire for the father actually to support the mother and children rather than all the money going to reduce the Treasury's expenditure on Income Support at no advantage to the mother and children. Yes - it is wrong to commit "benefit fraud". But it should not be falsely represented as "not supporting the children" - it is the Treasury that isn't supporting the children in the red text cases. (I'm emphasising which NACSA cases this applies to because other NACSA suggestions would impact parents with care and children).
The government now recognises what these mothers and fathers recognised all along - much of the money paid in child support didn't make the parent with care and the children better off, and in fact often made them worse off. The reformed scheme will have a £10 disregard in Income Support. Had it done so from the start, the relationship between lone parents and the CSA would often have been very different, and probably so would NACSA's advice.
Items in blue
The text in blue in the article above talks about "One newsletter", "Another", "Other publications", "one newsletter", etc, and in each case accompanies a quote from a document.
In fact, all such quotes are in "The CSA Survival Guide" of August 1997. It is possible that the Independent on Sunday, in August 1999, published an entire article based on a single document which was 2 years old at the time.
It was silly for NACSA to make itself vulnerable to criticism by publishing such "advice" (dressed up as anecdotes). NACSA will always struggle to be taken seriously as a lobby group while it thinks it is cross between a protest group and a revolutionary group. But it was also dubious journalism to fill so many column inches based on a 2 year old document.
Then it was a bad experience for Andy Farquarson to find himself under the spotlight without knowing the background!
| Page last updated: 28 October, 2001 | © Copyright Barry Pearson 2002 |
