[2024] UKUT 430 (AAC)

On 2 August 2023 the FtT considered the liability of the Appellant to pay child support to the second respondent in respect of their two children. It held she was liable to pay £8.46 per week as from 25 August 2021 and £84.04 per week as from 9 December 2021 because of new employment. That included a 3/7 shared care reduction for each child.

The FtT recorded that a court order of 17 February 2021 provided that the children were to live with the second respondent and spend time with the appellant. The FtT notes that that order was varied on 22 December 2021, after the date of the decision under appeal, to state that the arrangements were in effect a shared care arrangement. It appears that that variation did not alter the time that the children actually spent with each parent.

The FtT calculated that the children spent 153 nights with the second respondent and 121 nights with the appellant (in fact 126 nights due to a period of self isolation). It rejected an argument that this was a special case under Regulation 50 of the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations, because it found that the appellant did provide day to day care to a lesser extent than the second respondent. Reference was made to the children not spending 175 nights with the Mother