New section 28B: Preliminary consideration of applications
81.This section provides for a preliminary consideration of the application. This is intended to sift out at the earliest possible stage those applications which have no prospect of success.
82.New section 28B(1) provides that, having received an application, the Secretary of State may carry out a preliminary examination (known as a “preliminary sift”) to check that it merits further consideration.
83.New section 28B(2) provides, in particular, that an application from any source will be rejected where it has not been made on one or more of the recognised grounds, or where a default maintenance decision (substituted section 12(1) of the 1991 Act) would be made. A partial list of the criteria which the Secretary of State will consider under the preliminary sift is in substituted Schedule 4B of 1991 Act and the rest will be prescribed in regulations. The intention is to sift out applications from non-resident parents in the circumstances where, for example, at the date from which any variation agreed in response to the application would take effect, they had either a nil liability, or a flat-rate liability, or a liability which has been reduced to the equivalent of the flat rate on account of any shared care adjustments. In these circumstances, the non-resident parents could not benefit from the effect of a variation.