Child support—procedure

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis
Published by a LexisNexis Family expert
Practice notes

Child support—procedure

Copyright © 2025 LexisNexis

Published by a LexisNexis Family expert

Practice notes
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This Practice Note provides guidance on procedural matters when dealing with an application to the child maintenance Service (CMS) for child maintenance under the statutory child support scheme, together with the information that must be provided, enforcement powers, variations, and revisions, supersessions and appeals.

Principles

Changes were made to statutory child support under the Child Support Act 1991 (CSA 1991) by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 (CMOPA 2008), initially in limited circumstances, but with effect from 25 November 2013 the revised scheme was extended to all new applications. Following the closure of the Child Support Agency in 2018, all applications are dealt with by the CMS. The relevant legislation uses the terminology person with care (PWC) and non-resident parent (NRP). In its public-facing material, the CMS refers to the NRP as the paying parent and the PWC as the receiving parent.

Key aspects of the scheme include:

  1. •

    the application must be made via the Child Maintenance Service

  2. •

    there was initially an application fee of £20 but this was abolished with effect from 26 February 2024; the following

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Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom
Related legal acts:
Key definition:
Child definition
What does Child mean?

A person under the age of 18.

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