[2023] UKUT 175 (AAC)

The implication of this consideration of how a calculation ought to have been made under the 2012 Regulations is that there appears to have been no proper basis upon which the First-tier Tribunal could reasonably have suggested to the father that it would be fair for him to accept that his liability for child support maintenance from 9 September 2017 should be based on an income of £81,725 in 2016/17. His historic income for 2016/17 could have been relevant only from the annual review effective from 9 September 2018. Fairness did not require the father to accept the First-tier Tribunal’s suggestion in respect of the earlier year.

In the absence of any adequate explanation for the First-tier Tribunal’s suggestion to the father, I am satisfied that it was inappropriate of the First-tier Tribunal to ask for, and accept, his concession and I consider that the procedure was unfair to him. Accordingly, I allow his appeal and I set the purported consent order aside, for reasons similar to those advanced by the Secretary of State.

However, I am not satisfied that this case should be remitted to the First-tier Tribunal. It has been going on for far too long already and there is no substantial dispute about the facts. Accordingly, for the reasons I have given, which are based on arguments advanced by the Secretary of State and the mother at various stages of these proceedings as well as information provided by the father, I decide that the father’s liability for child support maintenance from 9 September 2017 should be based on his 2015/16 historic income of £66,319.62.

The Secretary of State has the power under regulation 14(3A) of the 2012 Regulations to revise decisions made after 13 October 2017 in the light of this decision.