I have a cleint who informed the agency that he was off work sick and on sickness benefit and the agency still deducted the monies from his income for his two children to his previous partner. This left him with no money to exist on for one month. He has arrears with the agency. He is appealing this decision which deprived him of income he was not in reciept of. I would appreciate some advice from anyone who has had a similat case.

Its a long while since I have done child support stuff and certainly before the new rules. As far as I can remember (and I may be talking rubbish) they should have reassessed him. The main reason is that eal absent parents (or non resident parents -in the new language) have a protected income level.

If I'm right then maybe someone more up to date than me can quote the exact regs. If I'm wrong then the whole edifice needs tearing down including the machinery that draughted the regs.

Hi. Actually under the 'new rules' there is no 'protected income' stage to the calculation. However there are people who pay nothing because of the category they fall into, and people who pay a flat or reduced rate. I'm not sure what exactly the non-resident parent is on here (incapacity benefit or SSP?). If it is IB, then he should only have to pay the flat rate of £5 a week. If he gets sick pay from the employer, it would depend on the rate of sick pay, but as SSP is under £100 a week then if he just gets SSP, again the flat rate of £5 a week applies.

Having said that, usually weekly income is calculated according to a pattern so it may be that the CSA haven't reassessed him simply because they are not aware of how long he has been off sick - they will not automatically know, nor will they know what level of sick pay he is on, it is up to him to request a revision.