Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, for what reason child maintenance arrears are not offset against the amount owed by a paying parent after they have moved from being a receiving parent.

The Child Maintenance Service is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children and will do everything to encourage cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support.

Child Maintenance Regulations provide that “offsetting” is a process that allows the Child Maintenance Service to adjust child maintenance payments and arrears in specific scenarios between the Paying Parent and the Receiving Parent.

Child Maintenance role reversal offsetting occurs when a qualifying child changes the parent they live with. This means that the Receiving Parent and the Paying Parent reverse their roles in relation to the qualifying child, so that the Receiving Parent becomes the Paying Parent and vice versa. The potential for a debt against debt offset arises where the former Paying Parent (now the Receiving Parent) owed arrears to the former Receiving Parent (now the Paying Parent) at the point their roles were reversed, and the new Paying Parent fails to pay their current liability, so that they now owe arrears to the new Receiving Parent.

When deciding whether it is appropriate to offset ongoing payments against arrears, caseworkers must consider the length of time that the parent who owes the arrears will be without their ongoing maintenance payments because the payments they are due to receive will be stopped or reduced in comparison with the arrears that they owe. It is essential that caseworkers carefully consider the effect that this may have on the welfare of all children potentially affected.