How much child maintenance should be paid?

How much child maintenance should be paid?

How much child maintenance should be paid depends on the individual circumstances of the separated family and the type of arrangement they decide to make.

With a family-based arrangement, parents and/or carers can agree between themselves how much child maintenance is paid and what counts as child maintenance.

Every parent is free to make a family-based arrangement – they don’t need to use the Child Support Agency. For more information about family-based arrangements, read A grandparent's guide to child maintenance.

If the parents are agreed that this is the way to go, they can use a family-based arrangement form from the government to make a record of what is agreed.

Agreeing a child maintenance amount

Most separated parents find that the best way to agree on a child maintenance amount is to do the following:

1. Look at how much money each parent has got coming in and going out.
2. Work out what the child needs and what that costs.
3. Agree on who pays for what.

Step 1: Look at how much money both parents have got coming in and going out

One of the best ways to get an accurate picture of finances is for both parents to make a budget. This will show how much money is coming in to each household, what’s going out and what is left over.

Writing things down might help both parents to clearly see how much both of them have to live on. Remember though, this works both ways!

All children need food and clothes. Babies will also need things like nappies, while older children might need equipment for school.

Step 2: Work out what the child needs and what they cost

You might also need to think about the cost of:

• Childcare.
• Activities like swimming lessons or days out.

The Child Maintenance Options Cost of raising your child sheets aim to help parents work out what the child’s needs are. Again, when things are written down in black and white, it can help show the other parent how the cost of raising children really does add up.

Step 3: Both parents should decide who pays for what

The final step is to agree how to share the cost of raising the children.

Who pays for what: the nuts and bolts of a family-based arrangement

How parents choose to share the costs of raising their children is up to them to agree.

They might decide to "split the difference". Or they might want to vary the amount according to how much they each earn. Another way is to agree that one parent pays for the larger one-off expenses, while the other pays for day-to-day costs. Alternatively, they could agree that one parent pays a regular set amount of money to the other parent. They could even decide that no money changes hands because they share the care of the children. For example, the children may stay with the parent without the main day-to-day care during the school holidays, or a couple of nights a week.

The important thing is that:

• Both parents agree to the arrangement.
• The arrangement provides reliable financial support which helps towards the child’s everyday living costs.

It’s a good idea for both parents to write down what they agree. They could do this using the family-based arrangement form.

How much would payments be through the CSA?

Both parents may decide that a regular payment of a set amount of money is the best option for them.

If so, they may want to find out what their payments would be if they used the Child Support Agency (CSA), and then use this amount as a starting point for their family-based arrangement.

The Child Maintenance Options calculator gives you an idea of what the CSA amount would be.

The calculator uses the same formula to work out child maintenance amounts as the Child Support Agency (CSA). It takes into account things like:

• The non-resident parent’s income.
• The number of children they need to pay child maintenance for.
• How often the child or children stays overnight with them.
• The number of other children the non-resident parent (or their partner) gets child benefit for.

More help with child maintenance

Child Maintenance Options is a free service for separated families. It provides impartial information and support including a range of useful tools such as a family-based arrangement form to help parents sort out child maintenance and deal with many of the other issues around separation.

Visit www.cmoptions.org, or if you'd prefer a confidential chat, call the Child Maintenance Options team on 0800 988 0988 (free from a landline).

You can also visit the Child Maintenance Options blog at Talking Child Maintenance blog or follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/cmoptions.