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The Child Support Agency (CSA), was introduced by the Government in 1993. It took away from the courts the powers to deal with maintenance for the children. This means that Child Maintenance is no longer a matter for the divorce courts or for your lawyer.

The Child Support Agency deals with maintenance for the children in most situations. The main exception is in the case where there are step-children, where the courts still have jurisdiction. Where necessary the Child Support Agency will take the non-paying parent to court and can obtain an Attachment of Earnings Order, so that the money for the children can be taken out of the non-paying parents earnings each month. The role of the CSA ends where a child reaches the age of 17.

In the interim stages of your divorce, whilst the financial stages are still being dealt with, we can apply to the court for you, seeking an 'interim maintenance' order. This is exactly what it says, a temporary financial maintenance order, pending final resolution of the financial issues either by consent between you and your partner, or through the Child Support Agency.

Whilst the Child Support Agency is assessing the level of payments for the children, we can assist you in carrying out investigations into the non-paying parents assets and even where necessary, covert surveillance; although this is not carried out by our firm, we can refer you to specialised investigators.

PLEASE NOTE: Recently the CSA has been receiving a great deal of bad publicity. It was originally set up in 1993. You may have heard of 'Father's for Justice'! Generally it is agreed that the Child Support Agency has not been as effective as was intended. There is a great deal of controversy about it's future and consecutive Governments over the past few years have been dogged by the question of how to improve the system. At present there is considerable pressure on the Government to carry out a complete overhaul of the CSA, mainly because of some high profile cases of bad management and poor decision-making. We will have to wait and see what steps the Government takes and, of course, our website will be updated as soon as an announcement is made.

The link below is direct to the CSA where you can obtain further information about how they work:

There is also a Child Maintenance calculator which will provide you with a rough calculation of the level of maintenance you can expect in your particular circumstances: