Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to page 8 of the Child Maintenance Service's leaflet entitled Changes you need to tell us about: A guide for paying parents and receiving parents, published in November 2013, what assessment her Department has made of the potential merits of introducing a legal duty on parents who pay child maintenance to report increases in their income when those increases occur rather than on an annual basis.

Paying parents are already required to provide information needed to make any decision where requested under the Child Support Act 1991. Where a calculation is based on a parent’s historic income, then changes may be reported within the year, however such changes will be picked up from the income data obtained from HMRC at annual review, so additional legal duties are not required. This provides a stable predictable maintenance amount allowing effective budgeting for both parents. There is also an existing duty within the Child Support Information Regulations 2008 which requires parents whose maintenance calculation is based upon their current income to report relevant income changes.