The recent BBC Panorama documentary interestingly highlighted the difficulties faced with the current child maintenance service (CMS) system.
This article explores child maintenance, as well as the issues that may be encountered with payments, and how solicitors may be able to help you.
What is child maintenance?
Child maintenance is a form of financial support between parents who are separated or who have never been in a settled relationship. It is a legal duty, regardless of whether one parent sees the child or not.
Generally speaking, child maintenance is designed to support your child’s general day to day living costs and paid to the parent who is the “primary carer” of the child, i.e. the parent with whom the child spends more time with. Where the child’s time is split equally between parents then ordinarily child maintenance would not be paid.
To receive child maintenance payments, your child must be under 16, or 20 if they are in approved education or training (n.b. this excludes university).
Who are the child maintenance service (CMS)?
The CMS is a government organisation that calculates, collects, and manages child maintenance payments for separated parents who are unable to come to a private arrangement between themselves. Also, the CMS can assist with locating a parent, if their whereabouts are unknown by the other parent and can take legal action against a parent who fails to pay the child maintenance they owe.
How is child maintenance calculated?
There is a useful calculator on the Gov.uk website that provides an indication of the expected maintenance you should either be paying or receiving based on your own circumstances, which can be found here. This result shows you the amount the CMS would likely award and is not a formal decision, but it may form the basis of discussions / an agreement between parents.
Child maintenance can be agreed privately between parents, or the CMS can be involved in the event of a dispute. The CMS can be contacted here if need be.
The CMS can take into account the payments one parent is already making towards the family home (where the child is living) and any child maintenance payments can be adjusted on account of that.
What difficulties are encountered with the current CMS system?
As the Panorama documentary highlighted, the current system does not always run smoothly. For example:-
- arrears can accrue into thousands of pounds, whilst recovery action is taken which can take many months and is not always successful. This can often leave the “primary carer” parent in grave financial difficulty;
- administrative errors by the CMS, such as incorrect family details and income data, can impose stress and financial pressure on parents;
- the CMS “Collect and Pay” service which deals with the collection and distribution of maintenance for some parents, imposes a 20% fee for paying parents and deducts a 4% collection fee from the receiving parent.
It should also be noted that the CMS calculations will only cover earnings up to £156,000 per year (before tax and NI deductions) and if a parent earns more than this there are other orders to explore in the family courts, including a “top-up” order. These applications are complex and should be carefully considered with a solicitor’s advice beforehand though.
How can we help?
Where possible and safe to do so, it is advisable for parents to agree child maintenance payments between themselves.
At EJ Coombs, our team of solicitors can advise on this as well as wider arrangements for your child and so please do not hesitate to contact us, using the links below if you would like to discuss further at an initial appointment.
