Guidance
Understanding your child maintenance statement: a guide for receiving parents
Published 1 October 2013
© Crown copyright 2013
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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/child-maintenance-a-guide-to-statements-for-receiving-and-paying-parents/understanding-your-child-maintenance-statement-a-guide-for-receiving-parents
Your child maintenance statement
We send you your statement every year to help you to keep track of your child maintenance payments.
Your statement only includes payments you have already received. It does not include information about payments you are due to receive in the future.
You do not need to do anything when you get your statement. However, if your closing balance shows you are owed some child maintenance, we will contact you about this separately.
A guide to your statement
You can find definitions of each of the terms used on your statement in the table below.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Statement dates | This is the period covered by the statement. So the statement will list all the child maintenance payments you received between these two dates. |
| Case effective date | This is the date when the paying parent became legally responsible to pay child maintenance for the child or children in your case who qualify to receive it. |
| Children | The names and dates of birth of the children you received child maintenance for in this case during the period of this statement are listed here. |
| Summary | This part of your statement shows you what’s been happening with all your child maintenance payments during the period covered by the statement. If you use Collect & Pay, the summary will give details of the collection fees you have been charged to use the service. |
| Date | This tells you the date when an amount of child maintenance was due to be collected from the paying parent. We work out how much child maintenance the paying parent has to pay as a weekly amount. But they can pay every week or every month. The dates on your statement will confirm how often you received payments. |
| Opening balance | The amount of any child maintenance owed to you at the start of this statement period. |
| Payments due to you for the period | The total amount of child maintenance you were owed for this period, including any owing to you from before the statement start date (arrears). |
| Total payments issued to you | The total of all Collect & Pay payments sent to you by the Child Maintenance Service during the period covered by the statement. |
| Closing balance | The amount of arrears owed to you at the end of the statement period. |
| Child maintenance due to you | An amount of child maintenance you were owed. This could include arrears payments owed to you. |
| Payment amount issued | A payment collected from the paying parent or their employer and paid to you for a Collect & Pay case, or a payment made to you by the Child Maintenance Service. If you use Direct Pay, the description ‘Direct Pay payment’ will appear on your statement instead. |
| Balance due to you | This is the amount of child maintenance from the statement’s opening balance that is still due to you at the end of the statement period. |
Explanations of other terms that may appear on your statement
These terms may appear in the ‘Summary’ section of your statement.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| Total Collect & Pay fees deducted | The total amount of collection fees for using Collect & Pay taken away from the amounts of child maintenance paid to you during the period covered by the statement. These terms may appear in the ‘Description’ column on your statement. |
| Amount written off | Unpaid child maintenance payments (arrears) which the paying parent does not have to pay. We will have already written to you about this. As a reminder, the reasons for ‘writing off’ amounts of child maintenance include: - we have made a decision that the paying parent does not have to pay these arrears - the paying parent has died and it is not possible to collect arrears from their estate |
| Child maintenance adjustment | The amount of child maintenance you should receive in a Collect & Pay arrangement could change as a result of a change of circumstances. If this happens, the statement will show the original amount of child maintenance due and the adjusted amount of child maintenance as a result of the change of circumstances. |
| Cheques returned | A cheque payment that was returned to the paying parent because it could not be processed. |
| Child maintenance due to you | The amount of child maintenance owed to you on a payment date for a Direct Pay case. |
| Closing balance – existing arrears | The amount of child maintenance arrears in your closing balance which has built up under the Child Maintenance Service. |
| Closing balance – previous agency arrears | The amount of child maintenance arrears in your closing balance which built up under the Child Support Agency. |
| Collect & Pay fee deducted | The 4% collection fee taken away from a child maintenance payment listed on the statement. This fee is for using the Collect & Pay service. |
| Compensation payment | The total amount of payments you received during the period covered by the statement as because of a mistake or official error made by us, or a complaint made by you. |
| Direct non-scheme payment amount (Direct Pay) | A payment made direct to you by the paying parent which is not part of the agreed schedule of child maintenance payments. |
| Direct Pay amount | An amount of child maintenance we worked out you should receive direct from the paying parent as part of a Direct Pay arrangement. |
| Direct Pay payment adjustment | The amount of child maintenance you should receive in a Direct Pay arrangement could change as a result of a change of circumstances. If this happens, the statement will show the original amount of child maintenance due and the adjusted amount of child maintenance as a result of the change of circumstances. |
| Direct Pay payment | A child maintenance payment the paying parent agreed to pay direct to you as part of a Direct Pay arrangement. |
| Outstanding balance | We will include all outstanding amounts owed by the paying parent. These could be from child maintenance, child maintenance arrears, interest or money they owed due to overpayments. The amounts may be owed to you or may be owed to the Department for Work and Pensions. |
| Payment from admin account | A payment we made to you for administration reasons. |
| Payment from suspense account | A payment made to you which at first was held in our account because information about the payment was missing or inaccurate. |
| Pending write-off (total for all periods) | Unpaid child maintenance arrears which are not part of a paying parent’s ‘negotiated amount’ of arrears (the amount of arrears that we have agreed they must pay). This amount is suspended for the time being. We will write it off when the paying parent has paid the total negotiated amount of arrears. We will have already written to you about this. |
| Previous active arrears | An amount of unpaid child maintenance owed by the paying parent and transferred from the Child Support Agency. The paying parent still owes this amount and must pay it. |
| Previous outstanding balance | All outstanding amounts owed by the paying parent from a Child Support Agency case. These could be for child maintenance, child maintenance arrears, interest or money they owe due to overpayments. |
| Previous suspended arrears | Arrears owed to you by the paying parent which were temporarily suspended by the Child Support Agency. The paying parent may have to pay these in the future. |
| Split care offset amount | This is what we do to adjust the payments due when there is more than one qualifying child and each parent is both a receiving parent and a paying parent. We call this ‘split care’. This means each parent provides the main day-to-day care for one or more of the children in a case. They will be entitled to receive maintenance for the child or children living with them. They must also pay maintenance for the qualifying child or children that do not. If one parent owes unpaid child maintenance to the other, this can be ‘offset’ against any payments that the other parent has to make. If both parents owe each other arrears, the amounts owing can be offset against each other. If there are no arrears, then the ongoing payments that each parent has to make can also be offset against each other. |
| Third party offset payment amount | A payment made direct to a third party by a paying parent that reduces the total amount of child maintenance (or the total amount of arrears) owed to you.<br. The payment must have been for: - a secured mortgage or loan taken out to buy the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live, or to make essential repairs or improvements to it - rent on the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live - mains-supplied gas, water or electricity charges for the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live - essential repairs to the heating system in the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live, or - Council Tax (Rates in Northern Ireland) payable by the receiving parent on the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live |
| Voluntary payment amount | A payment the paying parent made direct to you after the date when child maintenance was applied for, but before the date of the first scheduled payment. The payment must have been for: - a secured mortgage or loan taken out to buy the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live, or to make essential repairs or improvements to it - rent on the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live - mains-supplied gas, water or electricity charges for the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live - essential repairs to the heating system in the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live, or - Council Tax (Rates in Northern Ireland) payable by the receiving parent on the home where the child or children who qualify for child maintenance live |
Frequently asked questions
Can I ask for a statement at any time?
We send a child maintenance statement to everyone who has a case with us every 12 months. This is usually on the anniversary of the date when the case opened. But you can ask us to send you an up-to-date statement at any time.
Can I find out information about my payments online?
Yes, by using our self-service website. This is a personal online child maintenance account. If you’re registered, you can track your payments and get an up-to-date statement balance by logging in. It is completely safe and secure.