1. INTRODUCTION

Unlike many contributors to this volume, I did not have the privilege of either being taught by John Eekelaar or working with him. However, the copious references in my book Child Support: Law and Policy (Hart, Oxford 2006) to his scholarship on children’s rights illustrate the immense intellectual debt which I owe John. Much of John’s work has been path-breaking in exposing and exploring choices of principle in family law and social policy, and in this chapter, I wish to highlight, in one particular context, the importance of such choices. My focus will be on how the current UK Child Support scheme deals with cases of shared care.

The chapter is, therefore, primarily concerned with the UK’s Child Support scheme in its third iteration. By way of a recap, the first (and highly formulaic) Child Support scheme was governed by the Child Support Act 1991, and launched in 1993 (‘the 1991 Act’ and ‘the 1993 Scheme’). The second (and purportedly simpler) Child Support scheme applied the 1991 Act, as amended by the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000, and was operational from 2003 (‘the 2000 Act’ and ‘the 2003 Scheme’). The current scheme is subject to the 1991 Act, as further amended by the Child Support and Other Payments Act 2008, and has been in force since 2012 (‘the 2008 Act’ and ‘the 2012 Scheme’). The 1993 and 2003 Schemes are both now closed to new applicants, and all such cases with ongoing child maintenance liabilities have been transferred to the 2012 Scheme. This third scheme, in effect, reflects the withdrawal of active State involvement in setting child support awards, and represents a scheme of last resort for parents who cannot agree their own child maintenance arrangements. As this chapter will chart, the respective provisions for the special treatment of shared care cases within each of the three child support regimes have been the subject of both continuity and change over the past three decades.