The Child Support (Miscellaneous Amendments) (No. 2) Regulations 1995

Explanatory Note

(This note is not part of the Regulations)

These Regulations amend various regulations made under the Child Support Act 1991 (“the Act”).

The Child Support (Arrears, Interest and Adjustment of Maintenance Assess ments) Regulations 1992 are amended to make provision for the circumstances in which a parent with care must reimburse the Secretary of State for overpayments of maintenance which he has repaid to the absent parent as provided for in section 41A of the Act, which was inserted by section 23 of the Child Support Act 1995 (regulation 3).

The Child Support (Information, Evidence and Disclosure) Regulations 1992 are amended to apply to the provision of information on reviews (regulations 7 and 8); to set the time within which certain information is to be supplied (regulation 10); to extend the circumstances in which information can be given (regulation 11); and to make provision for disclosure of information by the Secretary of State to a child support officer and by a child support officer to the Secretary of State (regulation 12).

The Child Support (Maintenance Arrangements and Jurisdiction) Regulations 1992 are amended to allow an application for a maintenance assessment to be made notwithstanding that a court order is in existence, where the court has decided that it has no power to vary or enforce that order (regulation 14).

The Child Support (Maintenance Assessment Procedure) Regulations 1992 are amended in the following respects—

(a) regulations 8 and 9 are divided into a number of regulations to make them more comprehensible. Amendments have also been made to make provision for the effective date of Category B interim maintenance assessments generally to have the same effective date as would be applicable to a full maintenance assessment in that case; for effective dates of interim maintenance assessments made where an absent parent has failed to provide information required on review; for an interim maintenance assessment to cease to have effect where a child support officer receives information as to an absent parent’s circumstances for part but not the whole of the period since the maintenance enquiry form was sent; and in some circumstances for review of a cancellation of an interim maintenance assessment (regulations 16 and 17);

(b) regulation 16A is inserted to make provision for notification of lapsing of an appeal under section 20A of the Act (regulation 23);

(c) regulation 18 is substituted to provide that where an application for a review under section 17 of the Act is received less than 8 weeks before a periodical review under section 16 of the Act is due to take place, the periodical review rather than the review under section 17 shall be done (regulation 25);

(d) regulation 19 is amended to make new provision for reviews under section 17 of the Act to take account of the amendment of that section. The regulation provides that a child support officer must take account of matters which are brought to his attention by the parties (regulation 26);

(e) regulation 30A is inserted to provide for effective dates of new assessments which relate to part only of the period after the maintenance enquiry form was sent and also for the effective date of a subsequent assessment made when all relevant information is available for the whole of the relevant period (regulation 33);

(f) regulation 31 is divided into a number of regulations to make it more comprehensible and some amendments are made to effective dates of assessments made on review, in particular, on a review under the new provisions of section 19 of the Act (regulation 34);

(g) regulations 35A and 40A are inserted to make provision for the circumstances in which a reduced benefit direction should not be given or will be suspended (regulations 37 and 38).

The Child Support (Maintenance Assessments and Special Cases) Regulations 1992 are amended to make further provision for the definition of “relevant week” for the purposes of reviews and the definition of “day to day care” (regulation 40); to make clear that where housing costs consist of fees paid for residential care, the amount of such fees, for the purposes of exempt and protected income, shall be net of any housing benefit (regulations 42 and 43); to make provision for adjustment of existing maintenance assessments where a new application is made in multiple application cases (regulation 45); and to make provision for the value of a compensating transfer made out of assets belonging to the parent with care alone (regulation 48).

Other amendments made are of a minor, technical or consequential nature.

These Regulations do not impose any costs on business.