This is a letter I sent to my MP recently. I don't usually post personal things here, but I feel strongly about this and as this site has a majority male populace, many within the UK (apologies I don't know if separated fathers have a better time of things in other countries), I decided to share.





Dear Mr. Howlett,

For the past 3½ years I have found myself in a somewhat unusual situation – until November last year I had 50% care of my daughter and since then 100% care. Shared care should not be an unusual situation for separated parents, despite many studies showing it as beneficial for the child and the UK’s courts reluctance to grant anything other than “once every other weekend” for fathers.

The media portrays single fathers as either feckless deadbeats or nutjobs (see: Fathers’ For Justice); unfortunately from my personal experience the Child Support Agency and Child Benefit Office agree. In reality fathers are equally as able/unable and willing/unwilling to care for their children as mothers are.

Following separation/divorce I paid regular child maintenance. At first this was a private arrangement and then, once my ex-wife wanted more money, but didn’t want to ask me for it, through the CSA. Despite 50/50 care and paying for food, clothing (incl. school uniform), extracurricular activities and medical bills, I was deemed liable to pay maintenance. The only separating factor being the parent who is in receipt of Child Benefit is considered to be the residential parent with day to day care. I was thus issued regular letters threatening me of the consequences of not paying, not informing them of a change of address or withholding details of bonuses/pay rises. I was also told that if I was in receipt of child benefit I would be able to claim likewise.

From mid-December my daughter decided that she wanted to stay with me for the foreseeable future. I duly informed both the Child Benefit Office, who told me I would have to submit a rival claim unless informed by my ex-wife she no longer wanted the money; and the Child Support Agency, who told me they could not close my case or stop my payments unless my ex-wife agreed. I also looked into getting maintenance through the Child Maintenance Service following an unsuccessful attempt at negotiating a private arrangement.

My ex-wife agreed to put a halt to my CSA payments, but would not close the case nor hand over the child benefit.

I am now left in the following situation:

· I cannot apply for maintenance with CMS until my CSA case is closed
· CSA will not close my case until the issue of child benefit is resolved
· My claim with the Child Benefit Office is now with their Mandatory Reconsideration team and will take up to 15 weeks to resolve, this is despite applying in December, being briefly awarded 4 weeks’ worth of child benefit in February and my ex-wife admitting (albeit to the CSA rather than CHB) that she doesn’t have day to day care of our daughter at present

As you can see this has been, and is, a long and tedious process that is still to be resolved due to red tape and an unwillingness on my ex-wife’s behalf to cooperate for the benefit of our child.

I was wondering if you could help me in my situation, and if not me, then spearhead changes to the Child Benefit and Child Maintenance rules in order to help others in similar circumstances to my own.

In an ideal world I’d like to see the following changes:

· Courts awarding 50/50 care as standard
· Where genuine 50/50 care is established, child maintenance is not mandated and child benefit is not used as a decider as to who has day to day care
· Means tested Child Benefit payments in terms of 50/50 care, going to the parent with the lower income
· If a private maintenance agreement has been established and parents/guardians disagree as to the payment amount, then an independent body reviews it before the CMS are involved
· Penalties for parents/guardians refusing to notify CHB/CSA/CMS of changes which impact awards – I believe the CSA/CMS do this already, but only against the paying parent

I know this is sometimes not an ideal world, but a change is needed, both for children and for the majority of fathers who genuinely care for their children.

Regards,

Danny Wiltshire