The Child Support (Maintenance Calculations and Special Cases) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2001

Care provided in part by an authority

9.—(1) This regulation applies where paragraph (2) applies and the rate of child support maintenance payable is the basic rate, or the reduced rate, or has been calculated following agreement to a variation where the non-resident parent’s liability would otherwise have been a flat rate or the nil rate.

(2) Where the circumstances of a case are that the care of the qualifying child is shared between the person with care and an authority and—

(a) the qualifying child is in the care of an authority for 52 nights or more in the 12 month period ending with the relevant week;

(b) where, in the opinion of the Department, a period other than the 12 month period mentioned in sub-paragraph (a) is more representative of the current arrangements for the care of the qualifying child, the qualifying child is in the care of an authority during that period for no fewer that the number of nights which bears the same ratio to 52 nights as that period bears to 12 months; or

(c) it is intended that the qualifying child shall be in the care of an authority for a number of nights in a period from the effective date,

that case shall be treated as a special case for the purposes of the Order.

(3) In a case where this regulation applies, the amount of child support maintenance which the non-resident parent is liable to pay the person with care of that qualifying child is the amount calculated in accordance with the provisions of Part I of Schedule 1 to the Order and decreased in accordance with this regulation.

(4) First, there is to be a decrease according to the number of nights spent or to be spent by the qualifying child in the care of an authority during the period under consideration.

(5) Where paragraph (2)(b) or (c) applies, the number of nights in the period under consideration shall be adjusted by the ratio which the period of 12 months bears to the period under consideration.

(6) After any adjustment under paragraph (5), the amount of the decrease for one child is set out in the following Table—

Number of nights in care of an authority	Fraction to subtract
52-103	One-seventh
104-155	Two-sevenths
156-207	Three-sevenths
208-259	Four-sevenths
260-262	Five-sevenths

(7) If the non-resident parent and the person with care have more than one qualifying child, the applicable decrease is the sum of the appropriate fractions in the Table divided by the number of such qualifying children.

(8) In a case where the amount of child support maintenance which the non-resident parent is liable to pay in relation to the same person with care is to be decreased in accordance with the provisions of both this regulation and of paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 to the Order, read with regulation 7, the applicable decrease is the sum of the appropriate fractions derived under those provisions.

(9) If the application of this regulation would decrease the weekly amount of child support maintenance (or the aggregate of all such amounts) payable by the non-resident parent to less than the rate stated in or prescribed for the purposes of paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 to the Order, he is instead liable to pay child support maintenance at a rate equivalent to that rate, apportioned (if appropriate) in accordance with paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 to the Order and regulation 6.

(10) Where a qualifying child is a boarder at a boarding school or is an in-patient at a hospital, the qualifying child shall be treated as being in the care of an authority for any night that the authority would otherwise have been providing such care.

(11) A child is in the care of an authority for any night in which he is being looked after by an authority within the meaning of Article 25 of the Children Order.