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One of the key considerations for separating parents is how to provide ongoing financial support for children. One method is child support, also known as child maintenance. We take a look at what it is and how it works.
What is child maintenance?
Under the child support legislation, parents are given the title of parent with care (PWC) or non-resident parent (NRP). This is dependent on who the child normally lives with. Disputes about residency may be resolved in the family courts. However, even where a court grants joint residency, child support rules still require one parent to be the PWC and the other to be the NRP.
Child maintenance is money paid by the NRP to the PWC to help provide for a child’s financial needs. It may also be paid to another carer such as a grandparent or a guardian, who the child normally lives with.
Who can apply for child maintenance through the CSA?
A parent with care or a non-resident parent can apply to the Child Support Agency (CSA) to work out child maintenance and set up arrangements for payment. In Scotland, a child over 12 years of age but under 19 and in full-time education may also apply.
When a parent with care, or their current partner, claims Income Support or income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance, their claim will also be treated as an application for child maintenance. It is possible to ask the CSA to deal with your child maintenance case even where you have previously made a private arrangement, although some restrictions may apply.
How is maintenance calculated?
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The CSA uses information provided by both parents to decide whether maintenance is due and, if so, how much should be paid. It may also use information from other sources, including the non resident parent’s employer or HM Revenue & Customs.
Maintenance is calculated by applying one of four rates to the non-resident parent’s income. These are:
- basic rate (on income of £200 a week or more)
- reduced rate (on income of more than £100 but less than £200 a week)
- flat rate (on income of between £5 and £100 a week)
- nil rate (on income of less than £5 a week)
This is then adjusted by:
- the number of other children living with the non-resident parent
- who they or their partner get Child Benefit for
- the number of children the non-resident parent needs to pay child maintenance for
- whether the child stays with the non-resident parent at least one night each week
- Separation: making it work
My children live with me for half the week; do I still have to pay maintenance?
Child support law requires a transfer of money from NRP to PWC even when a child spends equal amounts of time with both parents. This can mean that a child is at risk of experiencing poverty whilst living with the NRP. If you are the NRP and you are worried about this, try talking to your child’s mother about possible ways of managing the situation.
What is C-MEC?
The Government is establishing a new organisation called the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission which will have responsibility for all aspects of the new child maintenance system. It aims to help parents to make an active choice about their child maintenance by removing the requirement for parents with care who claim benefits to be treated as applying for child maintenance.
The Commission is expected to take over in October 2008 although any assessments made before that date will remain in place.
Author
Nick Woodall from the Centre for Separated Families works with all affected by separation, promoting policies that recognise men’s ongoing parenting input after a split. With two teenage children and a step daughter, he's been a separated parent for 13 years. In 2007 he wrote Putting Children First with wife and colleague, Karen.
He has also written on parenting and gender, applying an ethic of care to post separation parenting choices and barriers to men’s parenting post separation, and he works as a freelance writer and editor.
Buy a copy of Nick and Karen Woodall's Putting Children First: a handbook for separated parents
Your experiences
The CSA has been in dire trouble for years. So will C-MEC do any better? Have you got any advice for other dads when it comes to setting up child maintenance? Use our comments system below to share your experiences and thoughts.
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