Recently revealed figures have highlighted that Torbay is in the top fifth of constituencies for unpaid child maintenance debt.
Information collected by Gingerbread, the single parent family charity, showed that there was £7,401,000 of arrears owed to parents in Torbay. The late payments threaten hundreds of Torbay families with poverty and stem from the failures of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC), which has been charged with collecting arrears but has consistently failed to meet its targets for collecting money from absent parents.
Nationally almost £4billion is owed by absent parents.
Adrian and the Liberal Democrats are proposing the scrapping of CMEC, transferring responsibility to Revenue and Customs so that absent parents tax records can be matched to their cases. For those who do not pay regular maintenance, arrears can then be automatically deducted via the tax system.
Adrian said: “Sadly so many families have been let down by the Child Maintenance system created under the previous Government. Government agencies have let down so many families and have failed to pursue cases where even the smallest difficulties arise.”
Adrian is urging any parents with problems with the Child Maintenance System to contact his office on 01803 200036 as well as consulting the Gingerbread hotline on 0808 802 0925.
i definitely think that cmec/csa should be abolished with immediate effect. the csa were notorious for making mistakes in assessments and arrears and they stil are, cmec is just a rehash of the csa and hasnt learnt from the csa mistakes. lives have been destroyed by this terrible agency and it needs abolishing now, then start from scratch with the inland revenue so arrears never build up. those still waiting for debts to be paid via the csa should beable to take their case files to a court whereby a mutually agreed figure can be FAIRLY reached,
Posted by: R Evans | 29/09/2010 at 09:33 PM