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Thu 5th November 2009
How will we financially maintain our children when we separate?

Child maintenance is regular, reliable financial support contributing towards a child's everyday living costs. 

Your Options: -

1. Agree a sum of child maintenance and frequency of payments between yourselves (a Private Agreement); or

2. Seek the assistance of The Child Support Agency (CSA) if an agreement cannot be reached (a Statutory Agreement).

The parent without  main day-to-day care of the child (non-resident parent or NRP) pays child maintenance to the parent with the main day-to-day care.  In some cases, a grandparent or guardian receives child maintenance.

The Child Support Agency has a very useful website at; http://www.csa.gov.uk/

How do you Calculate Child Maintenance Payments?

The CSA calculate the maintenance payments a NRP should pay to the parent with care based on the NRP's net weekly pay. 

The CSA also consider: -

*         How many children are involved;

*         Average no. of nights children sleep at the NRP's house per year;

*         The number of other children living in the NRP's household;

*         Whether the non-resident parent receives any benefits etc. 

The current scheme maintenance calculator on the CSA website works out how much the NRP should be paying.

The CSA can collect the child maintenance from the NRP and ensure receipt by the parent with main care.   

The Current Scheme, which has applied since March 2003 uses fixed rate percentage formula of the NRP net weekly income to go towards child maintenance: -

·                    15% for one child

·                    20% for 2 children,

·                    25% for 3 or more children 

Changes to Child Maintenance

The Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 provided for establishment of Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission (CMEC) replacing the CSA in July 2008.

CMEC will begin to deal with new applicants in 2010/11 but CMEC are unlikely to take responsibility for all cases until 2015. 

There are various changes including: -

1.  extending and increasing the benefit disregard (currently £20 maintenance disregard per week for those on IS, JSA(ib), ESA(ib), BUT full disregard from April 2010)

2.  providing an information and support service Child Maintenance Options, http://www.cmoptions.org/

In 2011, maintenance calculation will be changing from net to gross weekly pay and the new statutory maintenance scheme is to be applied in two parts, to the NRP: -

Gross weekly income of NRP £200 to £800;

o                   12% for 1 child

o                   16% for 2 children

o                   19% for 3 or more children

Gross weekly income of NRP in excess of £800;

o                   9% for 1 child

o                   12% for 2 children

o                   15% for 3 or more children

If you need any further information or you are thinking about putting in place a Private Agreement, please contact our Family Team on 01234 400000 or email Ctrundley@pwhmllp.com;