FNF Consultation Newsletter - 6th Feb 2018

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(You can also see our previous Newsletters by clicking here)
 

Welcome to this public consultation

      
 

Have CMS or CSA ignored your court order in assessing your Child Maintenance payments? 

We have had some reports of CMS and CSA amending child maintenance assessment based on the say-so of receiving parents and disregarding court orders. ACTION - If this has happened to you, please get in touch at admin@fnf.org.uk. We have a meeting to discuss this with officials in the department.

FNF have already met with Civil Servants responsible for Child Maintenance to discuss affordability. A press release will follow, but more work is being done on this and we will report back in the near future on this and our forthcoming meeting with the newly appointed minister responsible, Kit Malthouse MP.

Child Maintenance enforcement and debt write-off consultation - ACTION
 
We are reminding readers that the deadline for responses to the government’s consultation on new tougher powers to enforce non-payment of Child Maintenance and historic arrears write-off is due to end on 8th February 2018 at 11:45pm.
 
The consultation asks for feedback on proposals to introduce tougher powers for collection of Child Maintenance.
These powers include:

• ​removing passports for up to 2 years
• including income from capital, foreign income, notional income from assets and unearned income when working out amounts due
• deductions from business accounts at £8.40 per week
• similar deductions from benefits, income benefits and state pensions, etc 

Please feel free to provide your own input to this consultation by sending your comments to complianceand.arrearsconsultation@dwp.gsi.gov.uk. Details of the consultation can be found here.
 
We are making an FNF submission too and would welcome your comments and relevant short stories of your experience of the issues being addressed, the effect these proposals will have on you, your concerns and any feedback on the concerns we have too.
 
Please send these to admin@fnf.org.uk with ‘Child Maintenance Consultation’ in the title line. If you provide your phone number we may contact you to clarify specific points.
 
Our view is that the formula is wrong as it does not support shared parenting and because it is unaffordable to many low-income paying parents. If you are able to provide us with examples of your gross/net income, CMS or CSA demands and hence available the spend on your own cost of living, that would be helpful.
 
If you are self-employed and are struggling, particularly in relation to variability of your income, then similar details would also assist. We won’t use your real name in any submissions we publish.
 
Our press release on this consultation may be found here.
 
Last Newsletter
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Families Need Fathers - because both parents matter - 2018 - Our 44th year

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