Descriptions and discussion

Child Support Analysis ... for the 21st Century

Overview of the reformed scheme

A summary of the reformed system is provided on this site. It is a multi-page article that gives an overview, and also appends detailed references for those who need them.

Here is a summary of the changes in the reformed scheme. (Really, they comprise a large set of tweaks. There is nothing fundamental).

This is an overview of the CSA reform programme.

Here is where to read about the reform programme.

Here is an important academic paper on the topic:
CHILD SUPPORT: A COMPARISON OF THE OLD AND NEW APPROACHES
by Susan Grace Jenkinson LL.M. (A Masters paper submitted to Staffordshire University).

Another good summary around of the reformed scheme is that of Durham Legal Services:
"The New Child Support, Pensions & Social Security Act 2000".

Challenging questions

Here are questions intended to challenge assumptions that have built up in the UK about what a child support should be trying to achieve and how it should operate. These questions have been answered (deliberately or perhaps unconciously) in certain ways in the UK, leading to the current and reformed schemes.

Different answers to these questions would lead to very different child support systems (or even no child support system at all!)
Some nations and states have answered them differently, as indicated. A thesis of this web site is that the UK should answer several of these questions differently in the 21st Century.

The "shared care" flaws in the reformed scheme

The single most glaring fault in the reformed scheme, leading to massive unfairness and explicit sexual discrimination, is the "shared care" feature.

Families Need Fathers supplied a lot of material to the Social Security Select Committee about the unfairnesses in the Shared Care formula, and various other parts of the reformed scheme. I helped them develop the material, and helped them in person deliver the evidence to the Committee on the afternoon of September 15th 1999.
This evidence appears in the 10th Report of 1998-1999 of the Social Security Select Committee for that year, reporting on the CSA Reform White Paper.

We presented a fairer formula to the Social Security Select Committee. This appears as an appendix to the 10th Report of 1998-1999 of the Social Security Select Committee.
Baroness Hollis rejected this proposal. We don't believe her reasons are correct. We haven't given up!
Here is my commentary on that letter from Baroness Hollis.

We supplied a set of cases studies (here showing a slightly expanded set) showing how the faulty shared care formula, combined with deficiencies in the benefits and tax credit schemes, leave non-resident parents who share care badly off compared with parents with care.
When care is shared exactly equally, it is specifically the father who is worse off, because of the bias in paying Child Benefit to mothers, and the bias in the child support formula towards the person receiving Child Benefit.

It is valid to ask whether the formula should link the liability to shared care at all. (The answer is "yes"!)

Here is some historical material that developed this topic:

Here is a set of articles, going back to 1998, analysing this topic.
First, here is my original paper of 1998.

Sex discrimination in the child support legislation

This is the answer to the question "Does the legislation discriminate according to sex?" (The short answer is "probably yes". The long answer is here).

History of child support across the world

History of child support across the world
History of child support in the UK
History of child support in the USA
History of child support in some mainly-English-speaking countries
History of child support in some (non-UK) European countries
Comparisons across some mainly-English-speaking countries
Comparisons across some European countries

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Page last updated: 29 October, 2002	© Copyright Barry Pearson 2002