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Absent parents

5th January 2009

Angela Watkinson, MP for Upminster, puts a spotlight on the plight of some Havering families at this festive season:

“The discredited Child Support Agency was scrapped in 2008, but cases will not be transferred to its successor, the Child Maintenance Enforcement Commission until 2010. The CSA leaves behind a multitude of injustices. The government claims to have sorted out these problems, but a staggering £4billion remains uncollected by an agency that costs £563 million to run. There is only one place for this money to come from – the taxpayer.

“Residents in my constituency inform me that some caring cooperative fathers have not had enough left to live on after making payments to former partners who have since settled comfortably with someone new.

"Single mothers who are unable to work while caring for very young children have been left unsupported by absent fathers who dodge their responsibilities by refusing to pay or by disappearing altogether. They naturally turn to the CSA for help, but trying to make contact and get problems resolved is frustrating and defeats all but the most determined.

“In the current economic downturn, everyone will have to make economies and taxpayers will not tolerate government incompetence and wasteful expenditure, the system must be made effective and efficient.”