Mr Daz

One of the many websites that I administer is the very popular (or unpopular, depending on your stance) advice website CSAhelll.com. The website features daily stories from parents, both mothers and fathers, who are tearing their hair out due to the incompetencies, errors and bullying tactics at the hands of the Child Support Agency.

One post the site had recently was particularly funny because the woman who posted it came back a few days later, after receiving advice and comments to her post, wondering how her story had wound up on the website in the first place. This woman’s story (which I won’t link to) was sent in to the website by the aforementioned woman using the contact form on the website, yet she was dumbfounded as to how we received her information and were able to post it.

Had there been some sort of security leak at the CSA itself, you may ask? This wouldn’t have been uncommon, seeing as their data is hardly secure anyway. They once posted a woman’s bank details to me by mistake, after printing them out and leaving them on the printer for some idiot to pick up and shove in a letter bound for my address. They have also famously lost data, and had staff sacked for accessing adult websites and material online using supposedly secure computers; their information security is basically a mess, something which I personally told their head of security, Bernard Devaney, when I last spoke to him in reference to the CSA staff member who tried to coerce fathers into killing themselves via Facebook. He agreed, although couldn’t go into detail.

However, this time the error wasn’t the agency’s, not that they couldn’t do without recruiting a few more people to information security jobs anyway. No, this error was the fault of the woman who rather stupidly pasted her entire story into the CSAhell.com website thinking she was contacting the CSA and, even when she returned to the website to retrieve her feedback didn’t remember being there in the first place.

No wonder her life’s in a mess.

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I recently appeared on the radio again speaking about the government’s latest plans to shake up the Child Support Agency. While plans to force parents to pay to use the CSA may lead to more people making private arrangements, the fact that the CSA is answerable to nobody, and is driven by the single goal of ‘collecting more money’, means that the CSA can and will disregard any private arrangements whenever it wants to and force the non-resident parent to pay again.

I personally would love to have a private arrangement rather than go through the CSA, but I have seen evidence of the CSA coming back to fathers after many months have passed and insisting they haven’t paid, even when they have evidence of payments. I know they would do that to me, so I could never have a private arrangement myself – I would end up paying twice and the only people you can appeal to is, yep – you’ve guessed it, the Child Support Agency.

The interview was featured over at CSAhell.com, and you can listen to the full interview from BBC Radio York here.

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Sometimes I just have to laugh at the Child Support Agency. When I first encountered them, like most people, I was staggered by the lack of understanding, their indifference, their incompetence and, yes, their lies. I thought I must be really unlucky. Of course, four years on I realise that I wasn’t unlucky, I wasn’t cursed, I wasn’t being singled out – the CSA really is that bad… to everyone.

The website CSAhell.com (which is being mentioned in the Sunday Telegraph this weekend) receives dozens of emails every day from people pouring their heart out about how the CSA has failed them, is persecuting them or just isn’t listening to them; and no, it’s not just fathers – it’s an equal split between mothers and fathers. The CSA is useless on every level.

We have documented proof of their having lied, their having sent documents to the wrong addresses, breached the Data Protection Act and, most worryingly, of them having attempted to goad fathers into suicide. This isn’t rhetoric, this has all happened and has all been reported on the website CSAhell.com. These are facts.

Now however it seems that the Child Support Agency isn’t happy with the website and, in particular, its Facebook page. It seems that the CSA is unhappy that members of the Facebook page have been posting links to profile pages of people who have listed the CSA as their employer.

This news story chronicles the complaint from the CSA, and reports how they’re intent on shutting the website down. Here’s a quick quote from the piece, where Dave Richards, the PCS DWP Group Assistant Secretary, boasted:

“Staff in CSA do an important job collecting record amounts of maintenance and helping lift children out of poverty. They should have the right to do so free from harassment and threats of violence.”

“I am pleased to report that CSA and the Security Management Team are taking the matter very serious and are having successes in closing the site and/or having the worst elements removed.”

“It’s important that any staff with a Facebook account make sure it’s locked and they remove their employment details from their pages. This will stop such anti CSA sites from getting easy access to your details and putting you on their name and shame list”.

I find it hilarious that the CSA is looking to close the site down, and that they’re upset over how our members have been posting links to the profiles of their staff. However, here’s some advice for the CSA…

If you don’t want your staff to be plastered all over the Internet, how about you:

• Don’t post on websites such as Facebook that you work for the CSA
• Don’t post up photos of yourself, next to the aforementioned information that you work for the CSA
• Don’t set your profile to ‘public’
• Don’t post on websites such as CSAhell.com and the CSAhell.com Facebook page abusing people

These simple ideas aside, here’s one for the CSA itself. Rather than investing so much time (and public money, our money) trying to cover up the mistakes, incompetence, lies and general abuse of power by trying to shut down sites like CSAhell.com, and trying to gag people from speaking about their cases online (yes, we’ve heard about them too) why not just tackle the route of the problem and do your jobs properly in the first place? We, the public, have had enough of the corruption, the lies, the feathering of nests, the hatred and the lack of empathy from the CSA – we’re not going to go away quietly, we’re not going to stop what we’re doing, we’re not going to give in to your demands.

Throw your worst at us. We’ve already taken more than most would believe humanly possible by the very fact they we deal with the CSA. That in itself is more than any threats could afford.

We await your next move.

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Tags: Complaints, CSA, Internet, Rants by MrDaz
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I was approached this week via the website CSAhell.com to offer my opinion on the new paternity testing kits that are being made available across the UK by Boots. The kits will cost £29.99 to buy, and a further £129 to send off to the lab, and will prove (or disprove) the paternity of a child.

The idea of paternity testing kits being so readily available on the high street, much like pregnancy testing kits, is a significant worry for families as, through CSAhell.com, we have seen countless family units broken up over disputed parentage.

I gave my views on the subject on BBC Radio One’s Newsbeat, which you can read here, and appeared on Gabby Logan’s show on Radio Five Live yesterday. Here a short extract from the radio show where I explain my concerns to Gabby.

Darren Jamieson on Radio Five Live with Gabby Logan [ 1:44 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (5253)

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It’s usually about this time of year that I start thinking about filling in my tax return and submitting it online. Of course, I wouldn’t actually do it until January, but I’d start thinking about it now. When you complete your self-assessment and file it online you have until January 31st to complete it, file it and pay it – and last year I used every last second of that allowed time.

However, this year – or rather next year, as January is next year – I won’t have that last minute rush, that awful January weekend of going through bank statements and credit card statements, and that panic over how I can pay on time and not incur any penalties.

So what do we owe to this unrivalled and unprecedented show of organisation on my part? Is it because I’m using an accountant who has whipped me into shape with regards to my finances? Is because I’m using an online accountancy firm that has carefully gone through all of my receipts in plenty of time?

No, it’s because the Child Support Agency wanted to see my accounts for the last financial year, 2009-2010, forcing me to complete my return early. When I met with them in August they harped on about wanting to see my accounts, and wanting to know what each payment into my account was for over a four or five month period. Then, after my completing my self-assessment, filing my return and sending it to the CSA – they changed their mind and instead said they just wanted my return for 2008-2009, even though none of the payments they had asked about were for this time period.

I can’t complain too much. Their incompetence has forced me to file my tax return nice and early, meaning I don’t have any last minute rush in January – and I know exactly what I need to pay (which of course I’m still leaving to the last minute, you don’t pay a bill before you have to).

Thanks CSA – you’ve done something useful, even if it was by accident and it was through your own special brand of disorganisation and incompetence.

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If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t get through to the Child Support Agency when you phone up, or why their computer systems continually crash and lose your information, it’s because their staff have been accesses pornography at work. A recent news story from The Guardian revealed that four staff members at the Child Support Agency have recently been sacked for, among other things, looking at pornography when they should have been doing their jobs.

The imbecilic former staff members of the CSA were also wasting tax payers’ money by doing their shopping online with their computers in work time, and downloading files.

In addition to the sackings, another three staff members of the CSA (now known as the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission – CMEC) were also disciplined for their abuse of the computers.

The frightening thing is that none of this information would have come to light had it not been for a Freedom of Information request – which any person is able to make at any time. The FOI was made by the Internet security company Proofpoint. Their CEO, Gary Steele, commented:

“The Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission deals with extremely sensitive issues and data about family issues, and it is worrying that staff have been able to access unauthorised sites.

“Apart from the fact they should be doing their work and not logging on to completely inappropriate sites, these employees are risking the integrity of their office computer network.”

CMEC responded to the FOI request by stating:

“Commissions’ employees are regularly reminded of the rules regarding access to the internet sites.

“Every time an individual logs on to their computer system, he or she is prompted to read and accept the terms of the commission’s electronic media policy.”

A spokesperson for CMEC tried to play down the incident, claiming that few disciplinary measures are taken.

“We employ almost 9,000 people, and the disciplinary record speaks for itself.”

Of course, without the FOI from Proofpoint, we wouldn’t have known about this one, so we don’t know how many other incidents there are of the CSA’s staff downloading porn and abusing the computer systems.

Only recently, one CSA employee from their Belfast offices, Jamie Smith, made comments to fathers on a Facebook page that he would happily pay them all to kill themselves. We have learned since then that Jamie Smith has been dealt with internally, but the CSA would not comment as to what punishment had befallen him.

The CSA is to be axed next year amid the new coalition government’s many spending cuts.

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The website CSAhell.com featured a story on its Facebook page today about a New Fathers For Justice protest outside the CSA offices in Dudley. The protest saw fathers dressed up as various superheroes, including the Pope. There was also a mother there as Wonder Woman – just in case anyone thought NF4J was an exclusively male domain.

What is interesting however is the comments this post attracted on the Facebook page, where many people offered their support for the fathers in their protest. One person though, Jamie Smith, wrote the following scathing insult about the New Fathers 4 Justice:

“what a joke – a load of blokes who cudnt keep their pants on and expect to get away without paying. Id pay some of them to jump off some ver tall buildings with their batman suits on – then we’ll see how man they are lol”

Jamie Smith's comments

Jamie Smith is insinuating that all of the fathers mentioned in the story refuse to pay any maintenance to their children, and he’s suggesting that they all commit suicide by throwing themselves off the roof of a building, with his blessing.

This seems very uncalled for, but Jamie Smith has made similar comments on the Facebook page before about fathers and their dealings with the CSA. So what does Jamie do for a living? He works for the Child Support Agency of course – it says so on his profile page.

This CSA worker has posted on a public page, where people go to get advice about the CSA, his views on how the fathers in question should kill themselves, and that he’d even pay them to do it. Jamie is typical of the sort of person working for the CSA which, in itself, should tell you all you need to know about the values of the organisation.

Hopefully the CSA will take action against Jamie Smith and other members of its staff who choose to insult already emotionally traumatised people via the Internet.

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I received a letter this morning from the CSA asking me to attend an interview next week at the local job centre. This could be a problem, because I work and can’t attend at such short notice. I called the number on the letter and spoke to a woman, in Chester. When I gave my name she immediately knew who I was and told me she couldn’t speak to me, as I was to be contacted by letter only, and then she hung up on me.

What should I do now? I can’t attend the interview next Thursday as I’ll be in work, unless I manage to move some days around at very short notice. Even if I send a letter back to the CSA (as the woman said I should do) I can’t print one and send it until Monday when I’m next in the office, so they won’t get that until Wednesday, and the interview is Thursday!

Anyhow – listen to the call and see what you think.

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