Squiffy Teddy Does… The CSA
CSA: Short changing our children
Heather Mills gets over £60,000 for her child but what do you get for yours?
On Monday March 17th 2008, Heather Mills stood on the steps of the High Court, in London and complained that the judge’s ruling on what Sir Paul McCartney had to pay to his daughter was not enough.
Beatrice the four year old daughter of Mills and McCartney has been awarded by The Honourable Mr Justice Bennett:
£35,000 per year for maintenance
£30,000 per year for a nanny
Full School fees
The security and provision for Beatrice in the event of his death until the age of 17, or upon leaving school.
Heather Mills should count herself lucky all the way to the bank. She didn’t even have to go through the Child Support Agency to get it.
According to the CSA, in the year 2007 the average child assessment made by them was just £22.00 a week that makes an average of £1144 per year.
Statistics show that 7% of non-resident parents are self-employed, 45% are employed, and a staggering 48% are unemployed. Even those claiming benefit are liable to pay maintenance worked out at around £5.00 per week.
What must also be take into consideration is that though the parent without care pays child maintenance, parents with care who are on Income Support are only given up to £10.00 a week of that money. Despite the money being intended for the child, the government takes the majority to cover the cost of a parent claiming income support
If a non-resident parent pays £40.00 a week, the parent with care only receives a maximum of £20.00.
Income support is a benefit providing financial help for people between the age of 16 and 60 who are unable to work and fulfil certain criteria. Lone parents are one of these. Income support is for day to day living expenses. Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits are benefits given directly to cover the costs of raising children.
Since The Child Support Agency (CSA) was introduced in 1993 after the Child Support Act in 1991, the Agency has been through several dust downs and re-jigs.
In September this year the Agency was handling 1.3 million cases and one can only imagine the bloody mess that will happen when people start to opt out of the current scheme. That is not to forget there is the current scheme, the old scheme and now the Income Support opt out scheme.
The CSA since its initial inception has had some of Britain’s finest minds working on it. Let us not forget that it was a product of the Conservative Party. Maybe it should have been sold off with the rest of Britain.