This site is an archive of the OneSpace Forums. Return to forum index.
This site is an archive of the OneSpace Forums. Return to forum index.
Im a single father of 2 and i hold down a good job so i am paying roughly £300 a month towards the maintenance of both my sons. Now i also understand that if i was to lose my job and went onto Jobseekers Allowance that my 2 boys would get around £10 a month or something like that. Which makes me wonder if the child maintenance system needs a reshake to enable all children in the UK to get the same level of child maintenance regardless of whether the parent paying it is a millionaire or on the dole.
The way i see it is child maintenance pays towards the essential costs of bringing up a child such as food, clothes, etc hence i could agree that my £300 a month more or less pays for my 2 boys upkeep. But if i was to go on to jobseekers then i would be a bit worried that i was only contributing £10 a month to the mother. Hence my argument is that all child maintenance should go into a central government pot and all children in the UK receive a set amount based on what it actually costs to maintain a child. Now obviously some children live in poor families and some children live in well off familys so the system i propose would even up the maintenance for each child regardless of background to ensure ALL children in the UK are miantained to a minimum standard of living!
Any1 else agree?
Hi scousecraig, that is a very interesting idea!
Certainly if a parent without majority day to day care is on benefits then they only lose £5 a week of their benefit. And I know many people who don't even get that £5 from the other parent, whereas I also know people who get £600 a month in Child Support. The other thing that occurs to me is that the Government (Child Support Agency) might be a bit more stringent about pursuing non-paying parents if they thought it was the balance of their funds that would be affected rather than the person actually bringing up the child that would suffer (as currently). It would be even better if the child support was deducted from the parent's wages at source and in the case of self employment, added onto their tax bill so there was no escape! 
What does everyone else think?
For the children it would obviously be good, if there was such a pot. However, it would make it easier for parents to wriggle out of providing for their children. The CSA (does that still exist?) should step up more to get that money from the absent parent, that is true. It is very unfair that one parent struggles because the other can't be asked.
Louise, your idea is good, only from my experience self-employed do their paperwork just so, and if they are employed and the CSA catches up they switch jobs and hide again for a while.
It's a big conundrum!
The Guardian reported January that the average cost of raising a child from birth until their 21st birthday is around £218,000 (not including school fees fo privately educated children)
That means that if divided equally, both parents should be putting over £400 per child, into the pot every month, to keep up with society.
I think it is probably a rare few separated parents who are paying that much to the CSA!
In Sweden it is the Government that pay the Child Support and they are responsible for chasing absent parents for money, which I think is a much better way of working things. It means that the irresponsible parents out there have to cough up, rather than getting away with it as usual and the responsible parents, like you scousecraig30, don't end up worrying about what would happen if you lost your job.
Hi
No, I can't say I do agree. And I'm one of those who has the "other" parent who either felt that what was paid was far too much and then chose to avoid payment.
If the non-resident parent pays maintenance honestly, and is what is stipulated by the CSA then, in my books, that's fair. If they're not working, then the £5 a week is fair, as on job seekers allowance, it isn't possible to pay more.
It can also be argued that £300 goes towards the upkeed pf your children, I don't agree it would cover more or les all of it.
As for some families being wealthy and others not, that's a fact of life that applies to two parent families.
I also don't see why there should be a system in place that would ease the guilt of a parent who chooses not to be fully responsible for their child/ren.