The Child Support Departure Direction and Consequential Amendments Regulations 1996

Termination and suspension of departure directions

35.—(1) Subject to paragraphs (2), (3) and (4), where a departure direction has effect in relation to the amount of child support maintenance fixed by a maintenance assessment which is cancelled or ceases to have effect, that departure direction shall cease to have effect and shall not subsequently take effect.

(2) Where a child support officer ceases to have jurisdiction to make a maintenance assessment and subsequently acquires jurisdiction to make a maintenance assessment in respect of the same absent parent, person with care and any child with respect to whom the earlier assessment was made, a departure direction for a case falling within paragraph 3 or 4 of Schedule 4B to the Act shall again take effect from the effective date of the fresh maintenance assessment.

(3) Where a departure direction had effect in relation to the amount of child support maintenance fixed by a maintenance assessment which is, under regulation 8(2) of the Maintenance Arrangements and Jurisdiction Regulations (maintenance assessments and maintenance orders made in error), treated as not having been cancelled or not having ceased to have effect, that departure direction shall again take effect from the date that maintenance assessment was cancelled or ceased to have effect, except where there has, since that maintenance assessment was cancelled or ceased to have effect, been a material change of circumstances relevant to that departure direction.

(4) Where—

(a) a departure direction is in force in respect of an interim maintenance assessment or a maintenance assessment made in accordance with the provisions of Part I of Schedule 1 to the Act;

(b) that interim maintenance assessment is replaced by another (“the later interim maintenance assessment”) or, as the case may be, that maintenance assessment is replaced by an interim maintenance assessment; and

(c) by virtue of regulation 10 a departure direction would not be given if that interim maintenance assessment or that later interim maintenance assessment had been in force at the time that departure direction was given, that departure direction shall be suspended until that interim maintenance assessment or that later interim maintenance assessment has been cancelled or has ceased to have effect and shall again take effect from the effective date of an interim maintenance assessment to which regulation 10 does not apply, or of a maintenance assessment made in accordance with the provisions of Part I of Schedule 1 to the Act, which follows the interim maintenance assessment referred to in sub-paragraph (c).

(5) For the purposes of paragraph (4), a departure direction which is in force shall include a departure direction which is suspended.