Shared care
- Does the Child Support Agency (CSA) take into account times when the children stay with the parent they don't normally live with?
- What happens if the child spends an equal amount of time with both parents?
Q. Does the Child Support Agency (CSA) take into account times when the children stay with the parent they don't normally live with?
A. Yes. The CSA takes into account 'shared care' of children when calculating child maintenance. We reduce the amount depending on how many nights a year a child spends with each parent.
For cases on the current child maintenance scheme we reduce the amount of maintenance by one seventh for each night of the week that the child stays with the non-resident parent.
- Our leaflet How
is child maintenance worked out? [PDF 232KB]
has more information
on shared care in current scheme cases - Our leaflet Your
child maintenance assessment and help in meeting exceptional circumstances
[PDF 76KB] has more information on shared care in old scheme cases.
Q. What happens if the child spends an equal amount of time with both parents?
A. In current scheme cases, if the care of a child is shared equally between both parents (that is they spend 175 nights with both parents) we:
- divide the weekly amount of child maintenance by two, and
- reduce the amount of child maintenance again by another £7 a week for each child. The amount of £7 is set down in law.
In these situations we would encourage parents to come to their own financial arrangement in addition to our calculation.
- Our leaflet How
is child maintenance worked out? [PDF 232KB] has more information
on this.
In old scheme cases the child must spend an average of two nights a week (usually averaged over the last 12 months) with the non-resident parent before we will reduce the amount of child maintenance.
Related information
- Read our leaflet
"How is child maintenance worked out?" [PDF 780Kb]
