ROE v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions & Anor

Facts

The appellant, referred to as the Father under the cipher ROE, is the non-resident parent of a child (ULY) for the purposes of the Child Support Act 1991, and the second respondent, the Mother (IAL), is the person with care. The Child Maintenance Service, acting for the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, made decisions on 17 July 2020 about the Father's liability to pay child maintenance, with effective dates of 13 July 2019 and 1 April 2020. The Mother appealed both decisions to the First-tier Tribunal (Social Entitlement Chamber). On 11 June 2024 a panel comprising Tribunal Judge C Pithie and Financial Member Ms C Farquharson allowed her appeals and set both decisions aside, finding that the Father had unreasonably diverted very substantial amounts of income from companies he owned and that it was just and equitable to allow variations for those diversions under regulation 71 of the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012. It assessed the income to be taken into account as £134,319.75 from 13 July 2019 and £81,567.75 from 1 April 2020. The Father sought permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal, which was granted on the single arguable point concerning a freezing order the Mother had obtained restricting how much money he could take out of one of his companies. An anonymity order was made on 20 April 2026.