CMEC - TIMELINE

April - October 2009:

The fun really starts from 2009 as the new enforcement provisions will begin to be introduced including

• The most worrying change will be that of the Administrative Liability Order, which will allow CMEC to legalise a debt without first going to court.  Once the order is achieved, CMEC can then enforce debt recovery by a range of measures.  This is tantamount to CMEC being judge and jury to a debt based on a system that has proven to be inefficient for over a decade.

• Deduction Orders can be sanctioned against bank accounts.  This will allow CMEC to take payments directly from a bank account either in a lump sum or by regular deduction.  This will now be applied to joint bank accounts - not just those in the sole name of the NRP

• Ability to apply to court for the removal of, or prevention to obtain a passport.  This could result in difficulties shoudl the NRP have to use travel as part of their employment, or for those that may have families overseas.

• Ability to apply to the court for a curfew order to be made leading to restricted movement of the NRP

• They will now be able to recover arrears from deceased persons’ estates.

At the time of writing, NACSA and many other organisations and legal representatives have challenged the intention to use the Administrative Liability Order  to pursue debt that is currently time barred by courts. (ie debts that accrued before 12 July 2000).  Whilst the Admin Liability Orders were due to be introduced in April, we have confirmation from CMEC that due to current work practises between CMEC and the courts, they are not yet relying on the Admin option.

2010:

By early 2010, PWC in receipt of benefits should be able to benefit from a complete disregard of maintenance paid under private arrangements, ie you get to keep all the money paid to you without having your benefit reduced.  Currently, a PWC in receipt of benefit is entitled to receive £20pw as child maintenance without it affecting benefits, and this is due to increase to £40pw before finally becoming a complete disregard.   However, with the impact this will create on the taxpayer, we suspect a change of mind may be seen with regards to a complete disregard of maintenance.

2011:

All new applications for child maintenance will begin to be assessed under the CMEC regulations,.  This will involve the calculation of maintenance being based on gross (ie before your normal weekly/monthly deductions of tax and national insurance) rather than net income.   CMEC will gain income information directly from HMRC which should prevent incidents of false income details being presented to the Commission.

Clients on the existing CSA schemes will be encouraged to consider making their own arrangement for child maintenance, or will slowly migrate to the new "gross income" system which will be phased over a three year period.

2013-2014:

Assuming everything has gone according to plan, and there have been no delays in the bringing in the new child maintenance system, CMEC will be fully operational by 2013/14.  Of course, we are all aware of the delays suffered in all changes within CSA's history, so there is a possibility that this wil also be an issue with the introduction of CMEC.