Hi Dvm.
Thank you for your post. I am Sarah the Child Maintenance Options consultant.
If you are able to discuss and negotiate with your ex-partner, you could consider setting up a family-based arrangement. This is simply an agreement between the two of you about who will provide what for your children. This type of arrangement is not legally binding but it is flexible and can be changed as your circumstances change. As there are no strict rules with a family-based arrangement you and your ex-partner can decide between you what his contribution will be. It can include money and other kinds of support, for example providing clothes or paying for activities.
To help you to set up a family-based arrangement, we have got a number of guides available, along with some useful tools that you may find helpful. You will find these on our website at:
www.cmoptions.org.
Alternatively, if you feel that
mediation may help with the negotiation process, Gov.uk (which is a Government website) has a service which may help you to find a mediator in your area. You can find this at:
find-legal-advice.justice.gov.uk/.
If you find that you are unable to negotiate a family-based arrangement, you still have other options. The Government has introduced a new statutory service called the Child Maintenance Service and parents with two or more children will use this service rather than the Child Support Agency (CSA). The two statutory services run different schemes which use slightly different rules. Therefore, if you want to use a statutory service, or wanted to find out how much they may calculate for you to pay, you will need to use the Child Maintenance Service and their rules.
The Child Maintenance Service would work out child maintenance using your ex-partner''s gross income, which is income before Income Tax and National Insurance are taken off, but after occupational or personal pension scheme contributions are taken away. In most cases this gross income figure comes from information given to HM Revenue and Customs by your ex-partner, his employer or a third-party such as an accountant.
Just to make you aware that unlike the CSA, the Child Maintenance Service does not include Child and Working Tax Credits in child maintenance calculations for the 2012 scheme.
The Child Maintenance Service has two maintenance options available, Direct Pay is where the Child Maintenance Service will make a maintenance calculation and then allow you and your ex-partner to decide on how payments will be made. Once they have calculated the maintenance amount, the Child Maintenance Service will not contact you or your ex-partner again unless someone''s circumstances change or they are told that he has missed or fallen behind with his payments.
The Collect and Pay service, is where they calculate, collect and enforce payments on your behalf, as some people prefer the security and help of third party involvement. If you decide to use the statutory maintenance service in the future, your ex-partner''s responsibility to pay will start from around the point that he is contacted by the Child Maintenance Service.
It is worth noting that the Government plans to introduce costs for using the Child Maintenance Service at some point in the future. There will be three types of costs. These are an application fee, fees for collecting and paying out child maintenance payments, and enforcement charges for paying parents who do not pay. We do not know the exact amount of these costs yet or when they might be introduced as they still need to be approved by Parliament but the Child Maintenance Service will write to everyone with a case to confirm the exact amounts a least a month before they come in.
You can avoid costs by continuing with your own family-based arrangement with your ex-partner. If it does not work out, you can still apply to the Child maintenance Service at any stage.
To make an application with the Child Maintenance Service you will need to contact your local CSA office. You can find these contact details using the following link,
www2.dwp.gov.uk/csa/v2/en/contact/index.asp.
If none of these options are suitable for you, another option that you may wish to consider is setting up a
Consent Order. This is an official ruling made by a court. This usually happens when you are going to court for other reasons, such as arranging a divorce or dividing your property or other assets. Arranging a Consent Order can be costly as fees for solicitors, mediators and court costs may apply.
To find out more about how Child Maintenance Options can help you visit cmoptions.org or call us free on 0800 988 0988 between 8am and 8pm Monday to Friday or 9am and 4pm on Saturday.
We also have a sorting out separation web-app that you may find useful, it offers help and support to separating families. The link is:
www.cmoptions.org/en/sortingoutseparation/index.asp.
