Child Maintenance Reduction

Hi ambercharlie

Thanks for your post, I am William the child maintenance Options consultant. Under child support legislation, regular child maintenance payments must be made until a child is 16 years old, or 20 if they are in full-time, non-advanced education (A-level or equivalent), or for as long as Child Benefit is being paid.

The definition of full-time education is more than 12 hours a week of study, on a course up to and including A level standard and can include NVQ up to level 3. Further information can be found by using the following link www.gov.uk/child-benefit-16-19

It is possible to change the terms of your Consent Order but to do this you will need to get legal advice. This usually results in going back to court to set out the application on a standard form. The court will then consider any changes.

With your Consent Order being in place for more than twelve months and was set up after 2003, either you or your children’s father can apply to the Child Maintenance Service and the Consent Order will no longer be valid. The Child Maintenance Service calculates maintenance based on your children’s father’s gross weekly income.

If you would like an indication of how much maintenance may be payable, based on how the Child Maintenance Service calculates maintenance, there is a calculator available on our website at www.cmoptions.org/en/calculator/. Some parents use the figure provided as a starting point to negotiate a family-based arrangement.

The Child Maintenance Services have two schemes Direct Pay and Collect and Pay.

Direct Pay is when the Child Maintenance Service calculates maintenance and then leave you and your children’s father to decide together how your payments will be made. They will not contact you again unless either of you report a change in circumstances or if they are told that your payments have been missed or stopped.

Collect and Pay is when the Child Maintenance Service calculate, collect and enforce payments on your behalf, as some parents prefer the security and help of a third party managing their child maintenance. If an application is made with the Child Maintenance Service, your children’s father’s responsibility to pay will start from around the time that they contact him.

The Government plans to introduce charges for using the Child Maintenance Service in spring 2014. There will be three types of charges:

- Application fees
- Fees for collecting and paying out child maintenance
- Enforcement charges for paying parents who do not pay

The exact amount for these charges are still to be approved by parliament, however, the Child maintenance Service will write to you at least a month before they are introduced.

The best way to avoid charges is to set up a family-based arrangement and not use the Child Maintenance Service at all. However, if you and your children’s father cannot agree an arrangement between yourselves, there will be no collection fees for parents who pay and receive child maintenance using Direct Pay, only application fees. For parents using the Collect and Pay scheme the government plans to charge collection fees to both the paying and receiving parent, this is for collecting and passing on child maintenance payments.

Under the government’s plans the paying parent would have to pay 20% in addition to the weekly maintenance payment and the receiving parent would have 4% taken away from the weekly maintenance payment. For further information you may wish to speak to the Child Maintenance Service directly.

If you decide to make an application to the Child Maintenance Service, you will need to contact us first either by telephone or email, for your unique reference number. This number is personal to you. It is unique and shows that you have spoken to Child Maintenance Options before applying for a statutory child maintenance arrangement.

If you and your children’s father can discuss maintenance together, you may wish to try and sort out child maintenance between yourselves. This is known as a family-based arrangement and is where you and your children’s father agree who will provide what for your children. There are no strict rules or formulas that you have to stick to when working out a figure payable. You can include money and other things, for example your children’s father buying clothing. Family-based arrangements are not legally binding, however, they can be quick, easy and free to set up.

We have tools and guides available on our website at www.cmoptions.org/en/toolbox/index.asp, these include a maintenance calculator and family-based arrangement form that may help you agree an arrangement together.

To find out more about all the options available for maintenance and 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.

Thanks
William