Section 37: Additional special case
353.This section inserts a new paragraph (g) into section 42(2) of the Child Support Act 1991.
354.Section 42 enables the Secretary of State to prescribe cases as ‘special cases’ for the purposes of the Act, and subsequently to make regulations concerning those special cases.
355.New subsection (g) will include as a ‘special case’ the circumstances where two parents of the same children each have care for one or more of those children, and so each parent is both a parent with care and a non-resident parent.
356.Currently in these circumstances, each parent will be required to make a maintenance payment to the other. The new provision will allow for the offset of maintenance liabilities between the two parents, so that only the parent with the highest liability will actually make a payment.