Understanding Society User Support

Hi,

Sorry to bother you. I work for DWP and am trying to find out how many parents have child maintenance arrangements of various types and which specific children in the household these arrangements relate to. Is this possible? I'm using Wave 7 data as this is the most recent data available (to us) in which relevant-looking child maintenance questions are asked.

I think I understand how to identify parents with CSA/CMS arrangements, court orders and voluntary arrangements using the csacal, cmcord and cmvol variables, respectively. But is it possible to identify which children in the relevant households that these arrangements relate to? Based on the questionnaire and variable guide, the g_csakidnoNN, g_cmscokidNN and g_cmvolkidnoNN variables look relevant but i'm struggling to understand how to interpret these, even after looking at the existing guidance. For example, what exactly does, say, g_cmvolkidno3=1 mean/show? I thought maybe this meant that there is a voluntary arrangement covering person number 3 in a given household. But why, according to the routing instructions in the questionnaire*, is this only asked of parents who also have a CMS/CSA arrangement or court order, as opposed to EVERY parent who has a voluntary child maintenance arrangement? I must be missing something sorry!

Grateful for any light you can shed on this.

Many thanks in advance,

David

*Routing is supposedly as follows: "If (CMRoute = 1) // If biological/adoptive parent of child aged under 16 or child aged 16-19 in full-time education, whose other biological/adoptive parent is not currently resident in the HH And If ((CSACalc = 1 | (CMCOrd = 2|3)) & (CMVol = 2 | 3)) // Has a CSA/CMS calculation OR has a Court Order for maintenance AND a private arrangement