Dear Child Maintenance Service,

Under the FOIA I would like you to supply the following information:

1) Each set of individual shared care/overnight stay 'bandings' (sic) from 0 nights to 3+ nights per week, that you have used to calculate maintenance cases for the following years - 2004 to 2020 inclusive.

2) The lettering you have applied to each invidual band for each of the following years - 2004 to 2020 inclusive.

3) How many client cases have you been asked to re-assess under the '25% rule' from the following sources -

Internally
Independant Appeal & Tribunals/Ombudsman decisions
Family Court decisions
MP's
Charities

4) How many cases under the 25% rule when reviewed by non-CMS staff ie Family Courts, MP interventions, Appeals via Ombudsman, were ruled in the favour of the client?

Yours faithfully,

Al Paul

Dear Child Maintenance Service,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Child Maintenance Service's handling of my FOI request 'Shared care bands/overnight stay banding'.

It is my belief that the exemption for Q1 has been wrongly applied as the information I have been directed to does not fulfil the context of the question I originally submitted. Q1 and Q2 are very similar in context and whilst you have answered Q2 satisfactorily, for Q1 you have directed me to a table of statistics which bears no relation to the original question submitted.

For complete clarification, I wish to be provided with ALL the 'overnight banding' categories (such as the latest ones outlined in Q2) you have used to calculate shared care maintenance since 2004 to current date including their applicable lettering.

In relation to your replies to Q3 and Q4 I find it hard to believe that information is not recorded to a granular level in relation to how many cases you have had to re-assess under the 25% rule either internally or by an external direction such as a Tribunal or Court judgement. For complete context I seek information which is conducive to the situation of a client/s submitting an appeal to the CMS to have their cases re-assessed where a 'mandatory reconsideration' was refused by CMS on first application due to their current circumstances not meeting the '25% difference' threshold.

I would like you to reconsider your initial responses to Q3 & Q4 and to assist I have broken down the question further as follows:

1. Please provide the overall change of circumstance volumes for the year 2004-2020 and the raw data that underpins this information. I understand that personal data will be redacted.

2. As indicated, in your response please provide a volume of change to income changes for the years 2004-2020.

3. Please provide the process or procedure that is followed internally when you are asked to re-assess under the 25% rule, including how the requests are entered onto systems or spreadsheets and any drop-down categories that are used e.g. reason for assessment, origin of request to re-assess case e.g. independent appeal decision, tribunals, court decisions, outcome of the assessment etc.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...

Yours faithfully,

Al Paul