My ex has contact with kids (6 and 4) on Wednesday overnight and Friday to Monday morning overnight every other weekend.
He gives me his childcare vouchers to cover before and after school childcare requirements on his contact days - so Wednesday after school, Thursday breakfast club, Monday before school (eow). I currently drop/pick up from school on Fridays.
He dictates that I keep his full entitlement to childcare vouchers (£243) and that the difference between the vouchers and childcare costs is deducted from my child maintenance.
I wanted to change the arrangements so that he arranged and paid for his childcare requirements directly with the childcarer - i.e., instead of me passing his vouchers to them, he does. And pay child maintenance directly to me. As I do not require additional childcare vouchers now both children are at school.
He is now saying that his contact starts at 6pm and ends at 7.30am due to his work commitments. He has stated that if I go through CMS he will no longer pay for the childcare on his contact days because contact time starts at 6pm and ends at 7.30pm and he is not obliged to pay any further costs other than child maintenance.
Ive been to a solicitor who has written a letter to him to set out our agreement (contact times from school pick up/drop off) with the aim of applying for a consent order. He's going to refuse stating that due to work commitments he can only pick up at 6pm and drop off at 7.30am and I have a feeling it will end up in court.
Will a court deem this acceptable? We only had this arrangement in place as he had originally said that he would be able to collect early/drop off later but that the childcare arrangements were in place as a fall back if he was unable to leave work.
In my eyes we are both capable of picking the children up from school. We both have work commitments. If we're unable to pick up, then it's our responsibility to arrange alternative childcare cover on our respective days with the children. His overnight stays reduces my child maintenance by 100/month which would go some way towards covering his childcare costs if he arranged visitation when he able to fully care for the children with no childcare costs.