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Payment of deductions

You must pay us the amount of child maintenance you have taken from your employee’s wages. This must be done within 19 days from the end of the calendar month in which you made the deduction. Once you have made the first deduction you should establish a regular pattern of payment to us. This will mean we don’t have to contact you or your employee.

If this is not done you could be prosecuted under Article 32(8) of the Child Support (Northern Ireland) Order 1991.

Paying by automated credit transfer

This is our preferred way of collecting child maintenance payments because of its security and quick clearance times. The information that you need to provide to your bank is:

Our account name Northern Ireland Child Support Agency
Our bank sort code number 40-34-18
Our bank account number 71777009

When setting up an automated credit transfer, please make sure that the information is set out as shown in the following table.

You should send a separate automated credit transfer payment for each employee.

BACS field number	Description of field	Content
1	Destination sorting code number	40-34-18
2	Destination account number	71777009
3	Destination type of account codeTrans	0
4	Transaction code	99
5	Originating sort code number	Your company's bank sort code
6	Origination account number	Your company's bank account number
7	Free	Not used
8	Amount (expressed in pence)	Value of deduction
9	User's name	Your company's name
10	Liable person's reference number	See Client Reference Numbers below
11	Destination account name	Northern Ireland Child Support Agency

All of this information is important but especially 'Field 10, Client Reference numbers' which is vital to ensure the money you deduct and send us is correctly assigned. You must ensure that the reference number quoted in this field is taken from the latest deduction from earnings order provided by us (this can be found in the top right hand corner of the notification). The valid reference numbers will be in one of the following formats:

Reference Number	Description of field	Field Length	Field Type	Example
NINO	Liable person's National Insurance Number	9	Alpha-numeric	NA123456A
RFA	Liable person's request for assessment number	12	Numeric	100123456701
PID	Liable person's person identifier	12	Numeric	001234567800

Note: Please ensure that the reference number entered does not include any additional characters (i.e. quotes, dashes, underscores, full-stops etc.)

Sending an automated credit transfer.

If you send automated credit transfer payments covering deductions for one or more liable persons, you must also send a deduction from earnings order payments schedule (CSF802)(NI)

You can send this by post to:

Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division
Finance Team Level 12
Great Northen Tower
17 Great Victoria Street
Belfast
BT2 7AD

A copy of the deduction from earnings order payments schedule is included in the back of the leaflet CSL313(NI) (PDF 216KB)

You can use it as a master to produce as many photocopies as you need. Additional copies are available from the centre that sent you the order.

You can also get an electronic copy of the new scheme schedule CSF802 (PDF 68KB)

The deduction from earnings order payments schedule must include the following details for each liable person:

their full name (forenames and surname);
their reference number; and
the amount of the deduction taken (in pounds sterling)

The amount of the automated credit transfer must be the same as the total amount of deduction shown on the deductions from earnings order payments schedule. (See overpayments)

Until we receive this information we will not know who the child maintenance payment is for. This will delay the money being passed to the parent with care of the child.

Faxing this information will mean that child maintenance payments can be processed more quickly.

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Paying by cheque

Please make all cheques payable to Northern Ireland Child Support Agency.

You should send the cheque(s) and the deduction from earnings order payments schedule to the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division Office shown on the order. The deduction from earnings order payments schedule must list the following information:

the employee’s full name (forenames and surname):
the employee’s reference number; and
the amount of the deduction taken (in pounds sterling).

The amount of the cheque must be the same as the total amount of deductions shown on the deduction from earnings order payments schedule.

If you are sending payments to more than one Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division Office, contact one of the offices to arrange to send all payments to them.

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Overpayments

Do not use the deduction from earnings order payments schedule to recover or deduct previous overpayments. If an overpayment has happened, you should contact the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division Finance Team for advice.

Underpayments

If the payment we receive is not the same as the total shown on the schedule of payments, a member of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Division Finance Team will contact you.

Cancellation of a deduction from earnings order

If we decide to end a deduction from earnings order, we will write to you and your employee. The letter will tell you we have cancelled the order and to stop taking deductions from the date of the letter. You should not stop taking deductions unless we have written to you.