Child Support Agency
The Child Support Agency is a UK Government Agency, part of the Department of Work and Pensions, formerly known as the Department of Social Security. It was founded in the 1980s under Margaret Thatcher and immediately became embroiled in controversy over its policies of making 'absent' fathers pay towards their children's upkeep. The method of assessing maintenance due was held to be overly complex and failed to be administered correctly in many cases. There have been several changes to the way the system works, in order to attempt to redress these problems.
The simplification of the system that occurred was intended to reduce the workload of staff in making assessments. It did this by focusing on the income of the parent who has to make payments whilst ignoring the income of the household which receives payments. This has been stated by CSA staff to be less fair than the old system and is likely to be the subject of a test case under the Human Rights Act, a law whose primary purpose is to prevent governments using the excuse of convenience or reduced administrative costs to perpetrate human rights abuses such as occur under the present regime, according to claims by those who use and work for the CSA.
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