Child maintenance - what is included?

Apologies if this has already been posted and answered - I have only just found this website and wanted to get advice as soon as possible.

I have one daughter who is 8. She attends kids club twice a week at the moment and in September it will be an extra day every other week. Each session is about £12.

In the holidays I have been taking 100% of my holiday leave (compared to his 75%) to make sure the child care costs are kept to a minimum and also to see her as much as possible.

In the 2.5 yrs since our separation he has been paying half towards these costs. Now he has finally agreed to pay child maintenance and he is saying that the amount he is paying (191pcm) should include all kids club costs. If that is the case then I can quite easily see a situation where he would not take any more time off than absolutely necessary so that I had to pay out more. It would also leave me very little out of the £191 if she attended kids club during every holiday (it''s over £33 a day).

We are still trying to sort out the Consent Order so I have suggested that he cannot assume it is included until we have negotiated something - right now he''s adamant he doesn''t owe me anything (see my other post) and is not inclinded to talk.

So should it be included? If I didn''t have to work FT then she wouldn''t need to attend but then it might be he would have to pay spousal allowance.

In addition, we have been negotiating since June - or should I say I have been trying and he jsut takes his time in replying and then saying ''no''. He suggested in June that he had to start paying something towards her so now I have actually asked him he only wants to pay from August 1st - no backdating, not even this month!

Thanks in advance.

Unfortunately kids club could be construed as one of the expenses covered by child maintenance. It certainly is in my case!
My stbxh pays £30 a week and refuses to cover any extras or take any time off. Apparently he thinks £30 is like elastic and stretches to cover all my childs expenses.

Do you use the CSA? You may find if you go through them your payments could potentially reduce but they are collected on a regular basis and can recover any missed payments from the date you applied.

Also, have you tried working tax credits? They cover up to 80% of childcare in some cases so might be worth a phone call.

Thanks for the reply.

I am going to assume that her kids club in the week is covered but I am very reluctant to include the holidays

Child tax credits don''t apply - I earn too much. I can''t get the CSA involved until the Consent Order has been sorted out and that might take a lot longer as he is reluctant to engage.

I wish quite often that I didn''t work - it seems as though all of this is in his favour bcause he decided to reduce his income. I wish I had had that luxury.

Why don''t you want to involve CSA until post consent order?

Work out what the payments would be and see if you would be better off but you would probably need to accept that he wouldn''t pay a penny more than the CSA amount if you chose that route.

Thanks for you reply.

What I meant was that the CSA will not get involved whilst the consent order is being finanlised. This is what their Website says anyway. I might have to look into it further if everyone here is saying that''s rubbish!

I have worked out what the payments should be using various calculators and this is what I have told him.

If you apply to the CSA, any child maintenance provision statements would need to be removed from consent order. As far as I am aware once the consent order is sealed and includes child maintenance provision you would need to wait 12 months before applying to the CSA .

Hi, my consent order isnt finalised yet but the CSA have been collecting my CM payments for over a year.

I think maybe they dont get involved if you are asking for CM via court, but i never went down that route.