It’s hard enough trying to cope with your ex not financially supporting your child, and there’s even more stress when having to use the CSA to try and get this money from them, but now the government want to charge us single parents for doing this! Lots of single parents rely on the Child Support Agency (which is changing it’s name to the Child Maintenance Service) to get their ex-partners to pay money towards their child. I’m struggling to provide for my son; I work, but childcare costs make it difficult to pay the bills, but I have no other choice. His ‘father’ is choosing not to work currently (unless it’s cash in hand work), and refuses to pay a penny towards him. I went to the CSA in a bid to try and get some money and all I get is £2.50 per week! This doesnt even buy a packet of nappies! So now the government want to charge me for receiving this pittance?! Single parents will be made to pay a one-off fee of £20 for approaching the CMS, and they will then take a 4% cut of all maintenance given. This is despite the fact that single parents who use the service will be doing so out of NECESSITY! The only parents exempt from the £20 fee are those who had abusive partners, but they still have to pay the 4% everytime they are paid. Single parent organisation Gingerbread want to stop these ridiculous charges, so have set up a petition which they will be taking to the government. If you’re against this as I am, please get your friends and family to sign the petition ASAP! Click here to sign it now. Follow @vampybear !function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?’http’:’https’;if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+’://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js’;fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, ‘script’, ‘twitter-wjs’);
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