Make child maintenance deductions from an employee's pay
Overview
The Child Maintenance Service can ask you to:
- give information about an employee
- deduct child maintenance from an employee’s earnings
- send an employee’s child maintenance payments to the Child Maintenance Service
You can be fined £500 for each missed payment and up to £1,000 for not providing information you’ve been asked for.
Deduction from earnings order (DEO)
DEOs are a way of collecting child maintenance directly from a paying parent’s earnings or pension.
The paying parent is the parent who does not have main day-to-day care of the child.
When you’ll get a DEO
You’ll be sent a DEO if your employee is a paying parent who:
- chooses to pay child maintenance direct from their earnings
- does not already pay child maintenance that they owe
- does not pay the correct amount
- does not pay on time
Your legal obligations when deducting child maintenance
By law, you must:
- give information to the Child Maintenance Service if you’re asked to
- send payments as soon as possible, to arrive no later than the 19th day of the month after the month you made the deduction
- tell the Child Maintenance Service immediately if there are any problems with taking payments from a paying parent’s earnings
- make regular deductions
You could be taken to court if you do not send payments and do not explain why