Protected income
6(1)This paragraph applies where—
(a)one or more maintenance assessments have been made with respect to an absent parent; and
(b)payment by him of the amount, or the aggregate of the amounts, so assessed would otherwise reduce his disposable income below his protected income level.
(2)The amount of the assessment, or (as the case may be) of each assessment, shall be adjusted in accordance with such provisions as may be prescribed with a view to securing so far as is reasonably practicable that payment by the absent parent of the amount, or (as the case may be) aggregate of the amounts, so assessed will not reduce his disposable income below his protected income level.
(3)Regulations made under sub-paragraph (2) shall secure that, where the prescribed minimum amount fixed by regulations made under paragraph 7 applies, no maintenance assessment is adjusted so as to provide for the amount payable by an absent parent in accordance with that assessment to be less than that amount.
(4)The amount which is to be taken for the purposes of this paragraph as an absent parent’s disposable income shall be calculated, or estimated, in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.
(5)Regulations made under sub-paragraph (4) may, in particular, provide that, in such circumstances and to such extent as may be prescribed—
(a)income of any child who is living in the same household with the absent parent; and
(b)where the absent parent is living together in the same household with another adult of the opposite sex (regardless of whether or not they are married), income of that other adult,
is to be treated as the absent parent’s income for the purposes of calculating his disposable income.
(6)In this paragraph the “protected income level” of a particular absent parent means an amount of income calculated, by reference to the circumstances of that parent, in accordance with regulations made by the Secretary of State.