Child Support

Reviews / Votes

Three cheers...for the intrepid and entertaining Nick Wikeley, who has done so much to help us lesser mortals navigate these perplexing, not to say stultifying, paths of primary legislation, statutory instruments and Commissioners' Decisions, and to emerge from the experience feeling altogether enlightened. This book marks a key staging post in Professor Wikeley's highly respected corpus of empirical and doctrinal scholarship on child support, cementing his reputation as the leading expert in this field. Jo Miles Child and Family Law Quarterly Volume 20, No. 4, 2008 ...Wikeley presents a compelling and timely argument for conceptualising children's rights as the basis for the child support obligation...The historical and discursive sections of this book are interesting, informative, thorough and thought-provoking...this book provides a thorough, detailed and impressive consideration of both policy and practical questions relating to the child support system in the United Kingdom. Alison Perry Legal Studies Vol. 27, No. 3, September 2007 It offers a highly detailed analysis of the current law and practice governing child support (including its interface with private child maintenance) in the United Kingdom and will be of particular benefit to practitioners wrestling with the minutiae of the system...Why do we expect parents to pick up the bill for their children's upbringing? Wikeley is to be congratulated for doing what very few others have done, which is to pose and attempt to answer this question rather than take it as read that of course, they must because they are parents...destined to become a classic... Gillian Douglas Journal of Social Security Law This is a remarkable book, from a remarkable scholar. It not only provides sufficient legal detail on the current (2006) system to train a potential specialist child maintenance practitioner, but also the social policy analysis of the place of child maintenance systems across jurisdictions and over time which enable the reader to make sense of the apparent idiosyncrasies of the United Kingdom situation...We should congratulate [Wikeley] on his understanding of the difficulties facing all jurisdictions dealing with this issue, rather than offering simplistic solutions. Mavis Maclean Journal of Law & Society, vol.34 no.3 2007 ...a monumental text...For the scholar, the historian, an unlikely to be superceded text. For the lawyer, the definitive guide to what is about to be done away with. John Baker McKenzie, No. 72 December 2006 I cannot possibly begin to do justice in this short review to Wikeley's most thorough and comprehensive tour de force of the historiography in law and social policy of child maintenance. His style is clear and accessible and Child Support is without doubt essential reading for anyone engaged in teaching in research, in practice and in advocating for resources and legal reform in the area of child support. Susan S. M. Edwards Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law Vol. 29, No. 2, June 2007