A single mother won an appeal ruling which could force the Child Support Agency to re-open up to 50,000 assessments and make self-employed divorced fathers contribute much larger child maintenance payments. She had her child support increased from 11.29 to 343.73 a week, as a result of a ruling that the CSA had been wrongly applying a 1999 change in the regulations allowing the income declared in self-employed traders' tax returns to be used as a basis for calculating child support.
Source: The Guardian, 4 November 2003
Links: Guardian report
Date: 2003-Nov
A new child support scheme (heavily delayed by computer problems) was introduced from 3 March 2003.
Source: Press release 27.1.03, Department for Work and Pensions (020 7712 2171) | House of Commons Hansard, Debate 27.1.03, columns 567-580, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Press release | Hansard
Date: 2003-Mar
The government announced that its new child support scheme (heavily delayed by computer problems) will be introduced from 3 March 2003. The new system, covering new cases only for about the first year of its operation, will be based on a simple percentage rate of maintenance payment - 15 per cent of net income for one child, 20 per cent for two children, and 25 per cent for three children or more. For non-resident parents with net incomes of less than 100 per week or those receiving a wide range of benefits (including income support and jobseekers allowance) child maintenance will be set at a flat rate of 5 per week. A new child maintenance premium will mean that, for the first time, parents with caring responsibilities on income support or income-based jobseekers allowance will be able to keep up to 10 a week of any maintenance paid for their children.
Source: Press release 27.1.03, Department for Work and Pensions (020 7712 2171) | House of Commons Hansard, Debate 27.1.03, columns 567-580, TSO (0870 600 5522)
Links: Press release | Hansard
See also: Journal of Social Policy Volume 31/4, Digest 124, paragraph 1.6
Date: 2003-Jan