Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps her Department takes to assess the income of paying parents who are company directors in child maintenance service cases.

As company directors are considered to be employed by the company, we use the most recently available income data directly from HMRC to calculate how much child maintenance should be paid. Where company directors receive additional income from dividends, property, savings or other investments, this can be taken into account through an unearned income variation.