Child Maintenance Options

Questions and Answers

What is the Child Maintenance Options service?

  • Child Maintenance Options provides impartial information and support to help both parents make informed choices about child maintenance. Being impartial means there is no bias towards a particular parent, nor towards any one way of arranging child maintenance.
  • The service exists to help:
    • Separating/separated parents who need to set up a child maintenance arrangement
    • Anyone thinking of switching from a private agreement to an arrangement using the Child Support Agency (CSA), or vice versa
    • If a child maintenance arrangement has broken down or is not working as it should
  • This service exists to help guardians, relatives friends or professionals interested in finding out more about child maintenance.

What does the Child Maintenance Options service aim to do?

  • The service is there to help both parents identify the most appropriate maintenance arrangement for their circumstances. The service will:
    • Talk them through the different options for putting in place a child maintenance arrangement
    • Explain how to take the next steps to put an arrangement in place, once the parent has made a choice
    • Offers practical information in areas linked to child maintenance, such as housing, employment and money. It can also put people in touch with specialist organisations that can provide help and advice.

Who can call the Child Maintenance Options service?

  • Anybody including parents, friends and family.
  • CSA clients are also welcome to call Child Maintenance Options. However, if they want to talk about something specific to their case, the Child Maintenance Options specialist will signpost them to the CSA.

What support does Child Maintenance Options provide?

  • The service is completely confidential and impartial.
  • Child Maintenance Options provides the chance for parents to call and talk to someone in a confidential environment about their situation.
  • Parents can access a wide range of tools and leaflets through the Child Maintenance Options phone number or website, such as a private agreement form which can act as a practical step in making a child maintenance arrangement and an online calculator to help parents in making financial calculations.
  • Child Maintenance Options also provides signposting to other organisations and services.

What if Child Maintenance Options can't help a parent with their enquiry?

  • Child Maintenance Options signposts people to a wide range of organisations that can help on issues such as family separation, debt, housing and employment.

How many people has the Options service actually helped in setting up their own arrangements?

  • Based on internally conducted client surveys, the Commission estimates that 59,000 children are benefiting from private arrangements put in place since the launch of Child Maintenance Options in July 2008, following contact between one or both of their parents and the service.
  • Overall the take-up of Child Maintenance Options has been positive. In the year 2009-10, 255,000 people were helped through phone calls to or from Child Maintenance Options.
  • The Options service is not designed exclusively to promote particular arrangements but to guide callers to the best arrangement for them. We are working with other government departments to promote child maintenance arrangements through the public services they provide.