Help / advice needed

13Kent

The child had signed on to Connexions, so I am assuming the apprenticeship was part of that scheme, as CB was still payable for months when the child was neither working nor in education, and therefore CSA was still payable.

Once the child started work we asked for a Child Benefit check, and the CSA confirmed CB was still being paid, we queried why as the child in question was being paid in their own right, and were told that the type of apprenticeship still qualified for CB. So if CB was still being paid we were still liable to pay CSA.

After about a year of the child being on the course we requested another CB check as we suspected that the course duration was a year, and were told CB was no longer being paid - although the child was still working in the same place the apprenticeship had ended, and therefore CB was no longer payable. The PWC had neglected to pass this information on to the CSA, so we had paid money she wasn't entitled to. The CSA did refund this money to us once they had confirmed the date that CSA had ended.

So for us it all hinged on whether CB was being paid, and having an open CSA case we could easily request a CB check. If you do not have a current case with the CSA I do not know how you could find out if the PWC was receiving CB for a child.

HoneyNutLoop

The thing is, the CSA do not investigate if child benefit is legitimately being paid. For them (CSA not CMS) it's enough that it is in payment. Enrolling with Connexions will continue entitlement for 20 weeks and according to gov.uk this extension is only applicable for 16 and 17 year olds.

Though not about apprenticeships, this recent Upper Tribunal decision shows that if taken to appeal, the legitimacy of the Child Benefit should be reviewed if it is relevant to the CSA decision.
http://www.familylawweek.co.uk/site.aspx?i=ed143023

For the op, while there is no case, they don't need a Child Benefit check - it's down to him and the ex to negotiate between them. If the ex does apply to CMS, a child benefit check will be done then.

pmduk

HoneyNutLoop wrote: »

The thing is, the CSA do not investigate if child benefit is legitimately being paid.

CSA staff are neither trained nor qualified to judge whether child benefit should legitimately be paid; that is HMRC's job and from what I've seen on here they're not that bothered about it.

HoneyNutLoop

pmduk wrote: »

CSA staff are neither trained nor qualified to judge whether child benefit should legitimately be paid; that is HMRC's job and from what I've seen on here they're not that bothered about it.

That is rather the point though, in 13Kent's case. If Child Benefit was in payment, the CSA wouldn't check if that was correct; if the apprenticeship qualified. She could have a 100 conversations with them to check the decision was right, but as they don't investigate, it doesn't give her any extra security that the decision actually is right. That's the problem with advice from forums in general - advice is mostly based on personal experience and the assumption that what happened in your case was correct, but that's often not true.