CSA Assessments

Children are our future and they need to be kept safe and developed in the best way so as to ensure the development of our society and nation. They should be brought up well and developed under all circumstances. Especially when a relationship breaks up, it becomes most important to safeguard children’s futures. Part of this is done can be by deciding and agreeing child maintenance payments.

Child maintenance payments also termed as CSA Payments are the contributions which the non-resident parent makes toward the child. This payment is made to the “person/parent with care“, who is the person with whom the child lives, (usually the other parent). The two parties involved can mutually agree on level and conditions of payment. If not it is then decided by legal means.

Governments of UK have an executive agency named Child Support Agency (CSA), which is part of Department of Work and Pensions and solely aims at implementing the Child Support Act and subsequent legislation. The CSA performs two fold function of determining the amount for the child support to be paid and collecting and transversal of the payment from the non-resident parent to the person with care.

Prior to march 3, 2003 old method of child maintenance calculation was used but now CSA assessments are made via new method. Old method of the CSA assessment used a “complex formula of up to 108 pieces of information“. In it firstly total child maintenance was calculated based on the child’s age then after subtracting various allowances, the net income of non-resident is estimated and at last based on the collected data, it is determined what segment of the designed maintenance was to be paid by the non-resident parent, based on their income. The new method for CSA assessment is simplified and does not take into consideration complex calculations as before.

According to it the amount of the child maintenance or child support payments to be made is a fixed percentage of the non-resident parent income. It is fixed as 15% for one child, 20% for two, and 25% for three or more. If non-resident parent has children in their current family, then reduction in the amount payable as child maintenance is made. Payments are reduced by 15% if they have one child if they had one, 20% if they had two, and 25% for three or more. While the old method used computer system called Child Support Computer System (CSCS), the Child Support 2(CS2) was introduced for the new CSA Assessment.

This CSA Assessment article provides you with the information about how much child maintenance you might be asked to pay or receive based on the rules for the current scheme. For up-to-date information on Child Support Payments, CSA Assessments, a CSA Calculator, Child Support Help, CSA Complaints, CSA Delays etc log on to http://www.cv-service.org/csa.htm

Mike Kelley has provided up-to-date CSA Advice on http://www.cvservice.org as one of his Life, CV and Career planning website subjects.