Maintenance when son is working

jamieT_3

Hi 
I'm not sure if anyone can help or advise? 
My son has just turned 19 and in full time education doing an extended diploma in sports it comes to an end in July. His mum has never paid maintenance for our son as been on benefits but started a full time 17k per year job in September. 
Maintenance then decided she should pay £45 per week towards our son. But after the 1st payment that stopped and she raised a dispute as he's working on a zero hours seasonal contract doing between 27 and 35 hrs a week for 7months of the year in between his course and weekends. I spoke to benefits and they said I get child support until July when he finishes and have said my maintenance should still be paid but paying parent has stopped paying as they say he's not in full time education as working between his course. I've got evidence it's a full time course etc. Maintenance seem no help atall apart from 1 guy who said my son can work just not on a full time basis and not earning a stupid amount per year. Has anyone else had this or can help.

Spendless

I believe it's in line with when child benefit is eligible to be paid (even if you are too high an earner to receive it), that is usually late August/early September. Your son's part time earnings whilst he's still a student don't come into it until the point he works full-time, does a degree, claims benefits in his own right. 

RAS

The child's income is irrelevant. It wouldn't affect her right to claim benefits if he lived with her, as long as she was entitled to claim CB for him.

If you are entitled to claim CB for him, she pays child support. End of.

tightauldgit

Spendless said:

I believe it's in line with when child benefit is eligible to be paid (even if you are too high an earner to receive it), that is usually late August/early September. Your son's part time earnings whilst he's still a student don't come into it until the point he works full-time, does a degree, claims benefits in his own right. 

I know people say this about CB and that's generally the advice given but I have never actually tracked down where any piece of legislation actually says this. Is there somewhere that it is written down? 

Every time I've seen anything in documents it simply states that maintenance is paid until the child leaves full time education and then people (including CMS) have, probably reasonably, seemed to join the dots to CB dates as the cut off point. 

But certainly the fact the child is working and earning money doesn't come into it. If they are still in FT education then they are still in FT education. 

Spendless

tightauldgit said:

Spendless said:

I believe it's in line with when child benefit is eligible to be paid (even if you are too high an earner to receive it), that is usually late August/early September. Your son's part time earnings whilst he's still a student don't come into it until the point he works full-time, does a degree, claims benefits in his own right. 

I know people say this about CB and that's generally the advice given but I have never actually tracked down where any piece of legislation actually says this. Is there somewhere that it is written down? 

Every time I've seen anything in documents it simply states that maintenance is paid until the child leaves full time education and then people (including CMS) have, probably reasonably, seemed to join the dots to CB dates as the cut off point. 

But certainly the fact the child is working and earning money doesn't come into it. If they are still in FT education then they are still in FT education. 

A quick google gives me this though not exactly what you're asking about the eligibility for CM is exactly the same as when CB would be paid to. https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service/eligibility 

Eligibility

Your child needs to be under 16 - or under 20 if they are in full-time education, up to and including A level or equivalent.

Mentioned here too though it's not a Government website

. https://support.dadsunltd.org.uk/portal/en-gb/kb/articles/when-does-child-maintenance-stop

It appears that the government's definition of approved education for Child Maintenance is the same as its list for Child Benefit.

Education must be full-time (more than an average of 12 hours a week supervised study or course-related work experience) and can include:

1. A levels or similar, for example Pre-U, International Baccalaureate
   
2. T levels
   
3. Scottish Highers
   
4. NVQs and other vocational qualifications up to level 3
   
5. home education - if it started before your child turned 16 or after 16 if they have special needs
   
6. traineeships in England

 

tightauldgit

Spendless said:

tightauldgit said:

Spendless said:

I believe it's in line with when child benefit is eligible to be paid (even if you are too high an earner to receive it), that is usually late August/early September. Your son's part time earnings whilst he's still a student don't come into it until the point he works full-time, does a degree, claims benefits in his own right. 

I know people say this about CB and that's generally the advice given but I have never actually tracked down where any piece of legislation actually says this. Is there somewhere that it is written down? 

Every time I've seen anything in documents it simply states that maintenance is paid until the child leaves full time education and then people (including CMS) have, probably reasonably, seemed to join the dots to CB dates as the cut off point. 

But certainly the fact the child is working and earning money doesn't come into it. If they are still in FT education then they are still in FT education. 

A quick google gives me this though not exactly what you're asking about the eligibility for CM is exactly the same as when CB would be paid to. https://www.gov.uk/child-maintenance-service/eligibility 

Eligibility

Your child needs to be under 16 - or under 20 if they are in full-time education, up to and including A level or equivalent.

Mentioned here too though it's not a Government website

. https://support.dadsunltd.org.uk/portal/en-gb/kb/articles/when-does-child-maintenance-stop

It appears that the government's definition of approved education for Child Maintenance is the same as its list for Child Benefit.

Education must be full-time (more than an average of 12 hours a week supervised study or course-related work experience) and can include:

1. A levels or similar, for example Pre-U, International Baccalaureate
   
2. T levels
   
3. Scottish Highers
   
4. NVQs and other vocational qualifications up to level 3
   
5. home education - if it started before your child turned 16 or after 16 if they have special needs
   
6. traineeships in England

 

Yeah that's about as far as I got too, and I don't disagree that the received wisdom seems to be that CMS and Child Benefit work to the same wording my only thought on it is that just because Child Benefit decide that 'ending full time education' means X for the purposes of them paying out, that doesn't necessarily mean that is what it means for every circumstance.

I haven't really looked in detail to see if there are any court cases on it but to me if the legislation just says 'until they leave education' then it means the day they leave education and the fact that the government as a payer decide that means X for them for another piece of legislation wouldn't be binding on any other individual. 

Jinglish

If you want the specific details then you would need to view the legislation(s). Most likely under....

>Child Support Act 1991

OR

>Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008

They can be found on https://www.legislation.gov.uk/.

Good luck as these are not always easy to find and interpretive that's why the general gov.uk try to summarise it for us "humans" to read

tightauldgit

Jinglish said:

If you want the specific details then you would need to view the legislation(s). Most likely under....

>Child Support Act 1991

OR

>Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008

They can be found on https://www.legislation.gov.uk/.

Good luck as these are not always easy to find and interpretive that's why the general gov.uk try to summarise it for us "humans" to read

I'm not going to read it again just now but I did look at it before and from memory it just quotes the 'until they leave FT education' line but doesn't specify exactly what that means. 

I think CMS quote the 'same time as CB' line but I'm not sure that's got any basis in law and not sure what a court would say if it was challenged. 

Someday when I've more motivation I'll do another dive into it.