Department of Social Security v Butler: CA 1995

The effect of the 1991 Act is that the court has no jurisdiction to grant an injunction to prevent an absent parent from disposing of his assets. A detailed consideration of the 1991 Act shows that it provides a detailed and comprehensive scheme and that the jurisdiction to grant an injunction has been excluded by necessary implication.
The duty to pay imposed by CSA section 1(3) does not create a civil debt because it can only be enforced by the Secretary of State and then only in the restricted ways identified in the CSA.
Simon Brown LJ said: ‘The Act of 1991 provides the most detailed and complete code for assessing and enforcing the financial responsibility of absent parents for their children; it amounts to a comprehensive legislative scheme. Had Parliament thought it necessary or desirable to embellish it by providing for Mareva relief, it could and would have done so; that, moreover, would plainly have been achieved by conferring such additional jurisdiction upon the county court.’
Evans LJ, Morritt LJ, Simon Brown LJ
[1995] 1 WLR 1528
Child Support Act 1991 1(3)
England and Wales
Cited by:
CitedChild Maintenance and Enforcement Commission v Beesley and Another ChD 11-Mar-2010
The agency challenged the inclusion in an individual voluntary arrangement of the father’s arrears of child support. The creditors meeting had approved a full and final settlement. 94% of the debts were arrears of child support. The Commission said . .

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Updated: 02 June 2021; Ref: scu.402614