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We would like to take this opportunity to illustrate the correspondence that the Dead Beat Dads Association has sent into the CSA requesting answers as to why they try and get away with what they do.
Letter to the Chief Executive
Dear Mr Geraghty I would like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves, we are the Dead Beat Dads Association, we have been set up to help NRPs and NRPPs who have fallen foul of your draconian unlawful, un-moralistic uncaring agency. We ourselves have fallen foul of your agency and how your caseworkers encouraged by line managers to break procedures and laws in order to obtain money for child support illegally, this has been proven in court, so please do not come up with any excuses about the way our case was handled, in fact we are not yet finished with the individual case workers who dealt with our case illegally but that is yet to be sorted. Then with half of the case proven in court of the illegal procedures your case workers took then the next steps should prove to be very easy to start prosecuting individuals who work within your agency. Since setting up our Association we have managed to get three Liability Orders squashed due to yet again the illegal procedures your case workers try to administer in order to obtain money. We have also been in touch with NACSA who have informed us that they have had quite a few meetings with your executives to discuss hundreds of problems that non resident parents face when they have fallen foul of your case workers antics. This your executives have chosen to ignore and come up with comments like “our caseworkers don’t do anything like that” and without any sort of hard evidence then it was hard to prove that case workers were lying to NRPs and using intimidating, bullying tactics into scaremongering them into paying child maintenance illegally. However through our own experience and using our skill full knowledge of laws and legislations we found that your case workers did not like it when we exercised our rights when it came to assessing our case and we noticed that a pattern was forming amongst those people we advised on how to deal legally with your case workers, and that was those NRPs who exercised their rights, i.e refusing to answer questions over the phone due to the fact that your case workers could not prove they were ringing from the CSA and calling under the guise of the DWP then the NRP has every right to refuse to give out personal information to someone who could be anybody pretending to be a DWP employee on the other end of the phone, your caseworkers then put those NRPs down as being non compliant and go straight for a DEO and start taking money direct from the NRPs earnings. You know as well as we do that a DEO at this present moment in time should only be used as a last resort but the pattern is that case workers are using this as an easy fast track solution for obtaining money for child support.. The next scam we are aware of is to get those paying by cheque, standing order or direct debit onto deduction of earnings order, and to also obtain more money for the Agency illegally. To do this your caseworkers and line managers are using are issuing those NRPs with imaginary arrears. These NRPs have been paying the correct amount of child support they had been assessed and have had no change to their circumstances for the last number of years, and are paying their child support by cheque, standing order or direct debit. When the NRP rings the CSA to ask where these arrears have come from, the CSA cannot explain where they have come from or your case workers are saying “your case worker is not in today ring back tomorrow and they will be in and tell you where the arrears have come from”. The NRP then calls back the following day only to be told the exact same thin all over again. NRPs are then told to leave a contact number and they will be called back by the caseworker when they return, those return calls never happen. This can continue over a number of weeks, the next thing the NRP knows is when he receives a DEO stating the CSA are taking the child maintenance direct from their wages and that they are also including these imaginary arrears from the DEO. When the NRP eventually gets through to the CSA they are then told that numerous letters had been sent out to them to contact the agency to negotiate arrears but they have chosen to ignore the letters as the agency have not had any contact from the NRP, again we are aware of the scam here because we are aware that the agency do not have to prove any letters have been posted and any letters the case workers or line managers say have been posted are to be deemed as posted the following day, we know that the case workers and managers are abusing this law and are using this to illegally accuse NRPs of being non compliant in order for the CSA to fast track yet another DEO. We are also aware of how difficult it is for DEOs to be removed once they have been implemented.
We have advised a lot of NRPs and NRPPs how to exercise their rights when it comes to dealing with your case workers, your line managers and the agency as a whole, we have also advised everybody to record every conversation either by Dictaphone or by land line and record the conversation using a mobile phone on record, this again is what we ourselves have done and we have caught so many of your case workers and your line managers lying and I have done so far six cds full of the recordings and I have passed copies onto my MP and have also been trying to expose it to the media but they did not want to take the story on, this we could not understand at the time, however now that we have delved really deep into the CSA and the Government it has become apparent of the biggest scam this country is being exposed to indirectly then we have found the real reason why they wont take on our story but that is another matter.
The next scam your case workers and line managers are using are calling unsuspected NRPs and informing them of these imaginary arrears over the phone and are telling them to pay using credit cards, re-mortgage their homes and that arrears have to be paid back in two years as this is law, we know as well as you do that this is just a managerial steer and is NOT a law, so why are you allowing this behaviour to take place? Why are case workers telling people to re-mortgage homes, telling them to pay thousands of pounds on their credit cards? Case workers and line managers are NOT allowed to do that they are not financial advisors and should be disciplined for acting this way, or are we under the impression you are hoping the average NRP/NRPP is so ignorant they are not aware of this so you encourage your staff to work in this manner?
We have also become aware of the fact you are summoning NRPs who are paying arrears as well as regular maintenance which the agency say has been agreed, to court to have Liability Orders granted. Your Court Presenting Officers are also misleading the Magistrates into thinking they have limited powers to stop Liability Orders being granted, perhaps you and your CPO should have a good read through your own CPO handbook, yes we have a copy and it really disgusts us the manner to which your agency and all of its workers try to bully people into paying money illegally even through the courts. You and your court presenting officers know the correct procedure when it comes to Liability Orders and those already paying arrears and how you are not supposed to take those people to court for Liability Orders to be granted.
Your Agency are now starting to use delay tactics when it comes to NRPs requesting their DPA prints and asking for break downs of arrears under the Freedom of Information Act. Members of our Association have requested their DPA prints and have been faced with replies from your agency such as “what particular pieces of information are you wanting to request?”. If any body requests their DPA prints from you they are requesting all the information that you hold about them and your agency have to by law issue those people with their full prints and you and your agency know that, so we as an Association recommend that you stop these illegal delay tactics. Your agency would not tolerate NRPs using delay tactics when it comes to obtaining information for the CSA to calculate assessments so why does your agency seem to think they can break the law to suit themselves or to use delay tactics?
I would also like to draw to your attention the fact that the CSA are responsible for 60 deaths of fathers who have driven to suicide because they have been left with no money to live on because of wrong assessments made by your caseworkers, and the only thing you can say is “we cannot comment on individual cases”. What is it that you are trying to hide? why can’t you comment on the way your case workers who deliberately ignore the correct procedures and who try to flex their powers when NRPS exercise their rights and demand they are treated according to the legislations and law? We strongly advise that you are made accountable for these deaths because as you know it is very difficult to prosecute somebody who works under the protection of the Government body. We are aware your case workers and managers are crown immune and they are aware they can abuse any power they want and get away with it, and why ? because you are reducing child poverty, allegedly. You are responsible for allowing case workers and line managers to break laws and procedures and you personally have blood on your hands for the deaths of these fathers and we aim to bring you to justice for those deaths one way or another.
One other thing that really seems to confuse us at Dead Beat Dads and that is this so called reducing child poverty by 2010 and the fact you hide behind this smoke screen of the CSA recovering 12.2 billion pounds last year and how good the agency is doing in getting money to those children that need it. Would you care to enlighten us about this reduction of child poverty? Are you trying to tell us that child poverty is caused through parents splitting up or divorcing and if so can you back up that claim? You see the fact is we the Association have contacted 5 separate Child Poverty organisations, not one of them said that child poverty was caused due to parents splitting up, child poverty is purely down to the fact that the parent(s) do not know how to deal with their finances correctly, single parents are given child tax credits and are given other benefits to help them survive, if they cannot survive on those benefits then it is quite plain to see that the person(s) in Government who seem to know how much a single parent family can survive on have quite simply got their sums wrong haven’t they, so child poverty is actually caused due to lack of common sense from Government ministers such as yourself and the parent, however we await your side of the matter.
We do actually know the real reasons behind the way the CSA have been operating and the new CMEC will operate however you and the Government still seem to hide behind smoke screens, well we aim to do our level best to expose the smoke screens and make you and James Plaskitt personally accountable for any further deaths caused due to CMEC abuse.
We do have inside information within the CSA and one member of staff has been kind enough to post us a copy of a memo given to them by one of their Line Mangers and it goes like this “ The 2 year steer is no more, as there are too many MP complaints. Staff are now informed to take money from credit cards, and to do a credit available check first so the NRP can not deny having ability to pay.” THE INSTRUCTION IS " DO NOT WORRY ABOUT HARDSHIP CAUSED TO THE NRP FAMILY" FORCE THEM TO USE CREDIT FACILITIES AVAILABLE, BY TELLING THEM OF INTENTION OF PARALELL ACTION DO NOT ACCEPT ANYTHING LESS THEN THE FULL ARREARS OWED WHERE CREDIT IS AVAILABLE WITHOUT MANAGEMENT SIGN OFF
We would like to hear your comments on this one as this is clearly bullying intimidating tactics used by line managers to staff in order to make the CSA’s figures look good so that you and Mr Plaskitt can hide behind the smokescreen of we are getting more money to the children who need it because we have recovered another extra 12 billion pounds, it’s a pity you don’t inform the general public of the illegal activities you use to recover that money.
We the Dead Beat Dads request a meeting with you to discuss all of these matters face to face with you and we do hope that you reply to this letter personally and not pass it on to some secretary to answer for you because you are allegedly too busy to respond yourself. We seriously urge you to act now and listen to us, if not then we will. You are aware that you are required by law to furnish us with all this information under the Freedom Of Information Act and you have 20 working days to do so. We await your speedy reply
Yours truly,
Dead Beat Dads Association
The response from them was this
Date: 16 September 2008
Dead Beat Dads Association
I have received your e-mailed letter dated 21 August 2008 setting out a number of issues regarding the Child Support Agency’s administration of the child maintenance system. Stephen Geraghty has asked me to respond on his behalf as senior accountable manager for both the Client and Stakeholder Relations Team and our Complaints Line of Business.
I am concerned at your implications that some of our people are being targeted in direct response to the legitimate work that they do for the Agency. I would, in particular ask you to remove all recordings of our people from your website. Recording telephone calls is unlawful if done without consent and for the purpose of making the recordings available to others.
Although I recognise and can understand some of the frustration that might arise in relation to people’s experience of the child maintenance system, the deliberate targeting of individual employees is never a justifiable response and can only inhibit the progress of any meaningful discussion or resolution of issues.
While the requirement to pay child maintenance can enter people’s lives at an already stressful time for them, it should come as no surprise and is required by law. The Child Support Agency is currently responsible for the administration of the child maintenance system on behalf of the Government with a key responsibility to collect, if necessary by enforcement action, those child maintenance payments that are legally due.
It is regrettable that so many parents continue to refuse to meet their financial responsibilities for their children, at times wilfully frustrating the Agency’s attempts to carry out its legitimate duty, and denying others what is rightly due.
In relation to the many and varied allegations that you make throughout the course of your e-mail , I am not able to comment on any of the examples you have cited without further information about the cases you allege they relate to.
The Agency currently deals with around 1.8 million cases and while errors can occur, there are a number of available options for rectifying them. Concerns about what we have done or how we have done it can usually be sorted out by talking to the caseworker dealing with the respective case(s). If parents or their representatives have evidence of alleged failings or malpractice in any specific case, then they can use the Agency’s formal published complaints procedures. This can ultimately lead to an investigation by the Independent Case Examiner. Parents can also appeal against decisions made by the Agency.
We provide full details of these processes in our leaflets CSL 307 “How can I appeal against a child maintenance decision” and CSL 308 “How do I complain about the service I get from the Child Support Agency”. Both are available from our website www.csa.gov.uk or on request to any of our people.
People can also contact their Member of Parliament or the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman for assistance, or seek the advice of a solicitor.
I would welcome the opportunity to fully investigate what you have alleged about our performance and our procedures, but you will need to provide more specific details on the individual cases or occasions involved, to enable me to do this. Until we have the opportunity to review these individual circumstances and establish the facts, I am unwilling to comment further.
One allegation I will not however accept is that the Agency has been responsible for "60 deaths of fathers who have [been] driven to suicide …". The Agency is little different from other organisations who are required to contact people about their financial responsibilities at times they may already be finding stressful. While some of the news or information we are required to provide may well be unwelcome, we ensure that we carry out our legitimate responsibilities as accurately and sensitively as possible.
I can also assure you that the Agency takes its data protection obligations very seriously and that there are no delaying tactics involved in the processing of legitimate requests made through appropriate channels - there are distinct differences between a request made by an individual for information about their case and a Subject Access Request for all personal information held, and sometimes this needs to be clarified before it can be progressed.
You may already be aware that the Agency has a national Client and Stakeholder Relations Team who are in contact with a range of diverse organisations that represent our clients’ interests, to share information and insight, and address concerns. This includes the National Association for Child Support Action (NACSA) with whom you claim an affiliation.
We have recently offered to meet again with NACSA to discuss areas of particular interest or concern, some of which you appear to share. It may be beneficial for your organisation to be included in any such meeting, but I would be reluctant to extend an invite while the provocative behaviour of some of your members and the immoderate, inflammatory approach of your contact with us continues.
I would suggest, in the first instance, that you engage with me or my Client and Stakeholder Relations Team to explore specific issues or concerns impacting our mutual clients. The contact details are:
Client and Stakeholder Relations Team Child Support Agency Room BP6301 Benton Park View Longbenton Newcastle upon Tyne NE98 1YX
E-mail: Client-Relations@dwp.gsi.gov.uk
Yours Truly
Florence Lea Head of Client and Stakeholder Relations
Not answered any of our questions and she wants us to remove the calls, well seeing as how I informed them and they have confirmed in writing that I have made them aware that all my calls are recorded then the recordings will remain. Still no proof to back up their claim that Child Poverty is down to parents splitting up. I think we hit a nerve
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