All children deserve to be loved and cared in all ways and parents hold the duty to love them and support their children financially to cover their living and medical expenses. It is therefore necessary to provide the child with the life style and education so as to ensure their overall development, especially in case of non-resident parents. A non-resident parent is the one who does not live with their child / children and holds social, ethical as well as legal responsibilities to contribute to their welfare and development. This can be overseen by the Child Support Agency. The Child support Agency (CSA) is a UK government executive agency that deals with two fold functions of calculating CSA Payments i.e. how much child maintenance is due, as they have with powers to collect and transfer it from a non-resident parent to the person charged with the care of the child. Child Maintenance or Child Support payments is made from a non-resident parent towards the monetary cost of raising their children, paid to the person with whom the child lives, (usually the other parent), and referred to as “person/parent with care”.
It is immensely important to seek CSA advice before filling any CSA forms to be aware of any rights and to have exact knowledge of what to and what not to write on any documents the CSA ask you to complete. Good CSA advice provides you with all the necessary details you need to know and keep in mind when the CSA is involved in the case, such as not giving the CSA your home, work or mobile number or else you would need written evidence for any correspondence. Insist to deal via letters or recorded meetings.
Use a CSA Calculator to know how much child maintenance is likely to be due. Take care not to provide the CSA with your bank details. Don’t make any payments directly to your ex, always pay the CSA. Make it through Giro paying in slips. Also, make sure that you send the CSA letters through recorded delivery and keep copies of all letters to / from the CSA as evidence. Also inform and instruct your employers not to pass any information via phone to the CSA if they contact them and information should always be requested and passed by legal letters.
In case you have problems with your CSA case, don’t ring them yourself as it will be likely to bear no fruit. You can visit your local MP in person who can deal with the CSA on your behalf using his special powers. In the case that your ex-partner starts working, you can ask him / her to withdraw from the CSA system and adopt for the new working families tax credits. Also, try to find out how the CSA system works and learn about rules that you can use for your own good.
It is responsibility of the CSA to ensure that parents who live apart from their children contribute financially to them by providing child support. Child Support help is essential for getting a fair and good deal.