Does the CSA Have To Get Involved?

In short, no. Although child support reflects the legal obligation of parents to provide financially for their children, many people make informal arrangements. It is, in fact, quite common for parents to be able to come to a decision about financial arrangements for their children without needing to involve the courts or other agencies. However, these agreements can be broken and relations between the parents can sour, which then leads to the involvement of other agencies.

In other instances parents are made to pay by court order, or the Child Support Agency calculates the amount of the payments that parents should make. These are not mutually exclusive solutions, and it may be that a parent pays maintenance using more than one of these ways.

Could you Avoid CSA Involvement?

Not all couples will be able to come to an amicable private settlement but it can be beneficial to all sides, including the children, to try to reach an agreement without involving the CSA. Some of the benefits to private arrangements are; the lack of interference of third parties, which gives you more control and flexibility over the particular terms of your agreement and the ability to adapt to your own specific circumstances, rather than be trapped within the rigidity of CSA policies. However, there are several questions that you will need to ask yourself about your particular circumstances.

• Could you and your child’s parent work together in the interests of your child/children?
• Can you be honest with one another about money issues?
• If either of your circumstances changed, would you be able to work together to be able to make changes to the agreement as necessary?
• Is your relationship with your child’s parent such that you can agree to commit to making a private settlement work?
• Have you tried to agree payments before, but it hasn’t worked? If so, it will be harder to make it work the second time around.
• Will it matter that your private settlement is not legally binding? If the non-resident parent stops paying, you will have no recourse to collect or force payments against a non-paying parent.
• What would happen if your agreement stops working? Could you talk to one another about it?

Coming to a Private Arrangement

If you have arranged to settle the matter of child maintenance privately, you will need to discuss the agreement together to work out the fundamental aspects. Once you have been able to agree these elements, it is helpful to reduce it to writing and for both parents to sign it. Be aware, however, that this type of arrangement is not legally binding. The basic issues to agree are as follows:

• The cost of maintaining the child, including school, day to day living, clothing and sustenance
• How and when to make payments
• How much the payments will be
• Include a date in the future on which to review the terms of the agreement, to discuss whether or not the agreement is working

Can you Stop the CSA Being Involved?

If the CSA is already involved, and the care parent does not provide the CSA with the information they need to make the calculation for maintenance payments, the case can be closed and there will be no maintenance paid. It should also be noted that giving false information to the CSA, or not providing information to the CSA when it is requested is a criminal offence for which a person can be fined any sum up to £1000.

However, if a non-resident parent is not cooperating with the CSA in disclosing his or her income to them, the CSA can impose a ‘default maintenance decision.’ This is an automatic rate based on the number of children for which maintenance is being sought. The rates are currently £30 per week for one child, £40 for two children and £50 for three or more children.