When is csa closing down

This can be agreed mutually between both parents, or by using the CSA as an intermediary. From there your call can be transferred to your local office who will deal with your individual case or offer further guidance on how to proceed.

If you struggle to get through on the above number you can try one of the below CSA telephone numbers:. The CSA also known as the Child Support Agency offer financial support in the form of Child Maintenance to help with everyday costs of caring for a child or children when you have separated from the other parent.

However the Child Maintenance Agency are available to support you when you and the other parent fail to reach an agreement. There are currently three Child Maintenance schemes, the , and schemes. Chances are if you have already been receiving payments you will be on one of the previous or schemes managed by the CSA. Moving forward all new applications will be processed under the scheme and managed by the CMS Child Maintenance Service.

If you are on the previous and schemes you will more than likely remain on them, the CSA will contact you if they need you to do any differently. Over time the older schemes will be phased out and everyone will be managed by the CMS, if you are required to switch you will be given 6 months to do so and everything will be managed by the CSA and CMS.

Worried about child support payments? Struggling with child maintenance arrears? Money worries? Find out how we can help you. What happens if I don't pay child maintenance? Can I pay child maintenance arrears in instalments?

Child support options There are many ways you can help support your child instead of going through the Child Support Agency or Child Maintenance Service. To do this you could: Pay for certain items directly like school trips or uniforms. This would mean you could save up a certain amount of money each month to cover these costs, rather than having to make a monthly payment.

Combine some of these options by picking one or two and do what works best for you and your ex-partner. This includes plans on how the government will address debt that built up on the and CSA schemes. The strategy enables non-paying debt that is owed to the government to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions to be written off as this debt relates to a CSA policy that has now ended.

Work to write off the non-paying debt owed to government was started in December The following must also apply:. The PWC will be able to ask for an attempt to be made to collect this debt by providing additional information. Checks will then be carried out to decide if it is likely that the debt can successfully be collected. Checks could include locating the NRP and finding out about their financial status.

This means informing the CSA about any reason why the debt should not be collected, and providing evidence to back this up. If it is decided that the debt can successfully be collected, the amount of debt owed will be verified and the case will be moved from the CSA computer system to the CMS computer system for on-going collection.

The compliance and arrears strategy also included plans to write off debt on CSA and CMS where the NRP has been sequestrated Scottish Bankruptcy and the period of sequestration has expired as this debt cannot be collected.

The current case closure publication will be discontinued after the December publication because all liabilities on the CSA systems will have been ended. They are:. The majority of the current CSA QSS tables will be discontinued because they relate to cases with on-going liability and there will be no CSA cases of this type after the end of December Two of the current tables will be retained, these are:. Subject to the availability and quality of data, 6 new tables will be added to provide information on the representation process and the collection or write off of CSA arrears.

The worrying news is that, three months after closure, the majority of former CSA parents 56 per cent had no child maintenance arrangement in place. A quarter of such parents said the prospect of collection fees had been a factor in doing without.

Looking at the direct pay survey, at first sight, charges do appear to be working. But, dig a little deeper, and the child maintenance consequences are pretty grim. Almost half of all parents on Direct Pay either had no arrangement or one that was not working.

The threat of collection charges appears insufficient to motivate a significant proportion of paying parents to actually pay maintenance due in full and on time. The two reports confirm that the statutory service is particularly used by parents with low incomes. The case closure study found that three months after their CSA cases ended, parents on very low incomes were less likely to have any sort of maintenance arrangement than those with higher incomes.

The direct pay study found that, among receiving parents who paid it, two out of five had found it quite or very difficult to afford.

And among those with very low incomes, half found it difficult. The case closure study found that, among receiving parents who had paid the fee, around a third said it had been difficult to afford.

What about collection fees? A third of receiving parents opting for Direct Pay said they did it to avoid collection charges. And where parents were paying collection fees, the case closure study found that over a quarter of receiving parents said the losing 4 per cent of their maintenance was difficult to afford.

The government is required to publish and lay before Parliament a report setting out the conclusions of the month review, together with a statement on future policy. This is expected in spring. Both cover parents already in touch with the statutory maintenance system, and are hence less likely to feature those able to reach a family-based arrangement. And with a year still to run in closing down CSA cases, later cases — which include more parents who were previously paying and receiving ongoing maintenance — are likely to produce more positive outcomes in terms of new arrangements.