Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the official statistics Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to December 2024, published 25 March, how many of the 68,000 paying parents who paid no maintenance via the Collect and Pay service in the last quarter of 2024 are undergoing an enforcement process; and how many of those have (1) agreed a repayment plan, (2) had deductions from earning applied, (3) had deductions from benefits applied, (4) had a request for deductions from earnings applied, (5) had a deduction order from a bank account or saving account applied, (6) had assets seized, (7) had passports seized, (8) had driving licences seized, (9) had criminal charged laid, and (10) had other enforcement action taken.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a wide range of enforcement powers and is committed to using these fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families to tackle non-paying Collect and Pay cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours. CMS will always attempt to secure alternative methods of payments to gain improved compliance in cases where this fails.
The CMS Collect and Pay service with ‘nil compliance’, i.e. those who paid no maintenance, in the quarter ending December 2024, is published on Stat-Xplore and shown in the table below.
Method of payment for Paying Parents using the CMS Collect and Pay service with ‘nil compliance’, October to December 2024
Method of Payment | No of Paying Parents with nil compliance |
No Collect & Pay Liability | .. |
Bank Head Office Collection Account | .. |
Direct Debit | 751 |
Deduction from Earnings Order | 8,410 |
Deduction from Earnings Request | 58 |
Deduction from Benefits | 24,471 |
Standing Order (Default) | 30,834 |
Payment Offset | 9 |
Unspecified | 92 |
Standing Order (Voluntary) | 3,051 |
Not available | .. |
Total | 67,673 |
Source: Stat-Xplore
Quarterly enforcement statistics are regularly published in the CMS National Tables, however it is not possible to link these statistics to the published compliance statistics within the disproportionate cost limit.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what was the number and total value of enforcement fees that have been (1) charged to, and (2) received from, paying parents in respect of child maintenance in the financial years 2023–24 and 2024–25, under (a) liability orders, (b) lump sum deduction order, (c) regular deduction orders, (d) deduction from earnings requests, and (e) deduction from earnings order.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Financial Year | Volume Raised | Value Raised (£) |
2023/24 | 88,030 | £7,946,537 |
2024/25* | 105,495 | £8,335,937 |
Breakdown of volume and value charged to paying parents by Enforcement method
Enforcement Method (Charged) | 2023/24 Volume | 2023/24 (£) | 2024/25 Volume | 2024/25 (£) |
Liability Orders | 17,466 | £4,319,632 | 16,300 | £3,865,740 |
Lump Sum Deduction Order | 2,579 | £458,503 | 2,706 | £460,985 |
Regular Deduction Orders | 7,964 | £376,604 | 8,300 | £384,067 |
Deduction from Earnings Request / Order | 60,021 | £2,791,798 | 78,189 | £3,625,145 |
Total | 88,030 | £7,946,537 | 105,495 | £8,335,937 |
Note: Deduction from Earnings Orders (DEO) and Deduction from Earnings Requests (DER) are grouped together in reporting.
2.Total volume and value of Enforcement Fees received from paying parents.
Financial Year | Volume Received | Value Received (£) |
2023/24 | 49,763 | £2,086,180 |
2024/25* | 66,694 | £2,504,856 |
Breakdown of volume and value received from paying parents by Enforcement method.
Enforcement Method (Received) | 2023/24 Volume | 2023/24 (£) | 2024/25 Volume | 2024/25 (£) |
Liability Orders | 8,973 | £607,974 | 12,234 | £729,750 |
Lump Sum Deduction Order | 3,431 | £325,787 | 3,629 | £352,870 |
Regular Deduction Orders | 3,754 | £115,725 | 4,635 | £121,201 |
Deduction from Earnings Request / Order | 33,605 | £1,035,571 | 46,196 | £1,301,035 |
Total | 49,763 | £2,086,180 | 66,694 | £2,504,856 |
Note: Deduction from Earnings Orders (DEO) and Deduction from Earnings Requests (DER) are grouped together in reporting.
*Please note that 2024/25 figures are unaudited and subject to change
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government why they have not yet fully commenced the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 recognised that Direct Pay may not always be appropriate for victims and survivors of domestic abuse. The Act intended to provide them greater protection when using the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) by allowing them to access Collect & Pay where there is evidence of domestic abuse.
However, it can be difficult to evidence and verify who is a victim of domestic abuse, which is a necessary stage within this process as any decision will impact both parents. Many victims and survivors of domestic abuse will not be able to provide evidence, and for the cases where evidence is available, it could be traumatic for victims and survivors to discuss. Where evidence could be provided, the CMS would need to verify this with the appropriate bodies which could lead to delays for these customers.
As a result, the CMS have looked to resolve the issue by reforming our services to make them safer for domestic abuse victims without needing to identify who those victims are.
The Government recently completed a consultation proposing the removal of Direct Pay and managing all CMS cases in one service to allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster and better support victims and survivors of domestic abuse who use the CMS. The response will be published in in due course.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how much Child Maintenance Service payment was reduced to receiving parents because of “special expenses” relating to travel to visit family in (1) 2020–21, (2) 2021–22, (3) 2022–23, and (4) 2023–24.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Special expense variations allow the Child Maintenance Service to look at some circumstances which are not covered by the basic maintenance calculation. A parent may apply for a variation at any time during the life of their case. If we accept a variation and it subsequently succeeds, we adjust the maintenance calculation accordingly.
Special expense variations are:
The Child Maintenance Service holds collective data for all special expense variation categories but we do not hold specific data for each individual category. As data is not readily available, to provide this would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people and how many full-time equivalent posts work in the Child Maintenance Service (1) as civil servants, and (2) as contractors.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
As of 30th March 2025, the number of employees working for the Child Maintenance Service is 5,055. This equates to the full-time equivalent (FTE) of 4449.65
The breakdown for (1) civil servants, and (2) contractors are as follow:
| Number of Employees | FTE |
DWP Civil Servants (GB) | 4,078 | 3502.73 |
DfCNI Civil Servants (NI) | 651 | 620.92 |
Contractors (Recruitment Agency NI) | 326 | 326 |
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many, and what proportion of, parents in arrears on Child Maintenance Service payments are unemployed.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is committed to ensuring separated parents support their children financially, taking robust enforcement action against those who do not. Where parents fail to pay their child maintenance, the Service will not hesitate to use its enforcement powers, including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison.
If a paying parent is in receipts of benefits due to being unemployed, the CMS can set up a deduction from the benefit to collect ongoing maintenance, or arrears in the case of Collect and Pay. The CMS can deduct £8.40 a week towards ongoing maintenance or arrears from certain prescribed benefits. Deductions towards arrears and ongoing maintenance are not taken at the same time. Arrears deductions are taken only after ongoing liability has been satisfied.
The Information on the full arrears status of those parents is not readily available and to providei t would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many complaints the Independent Case Examiner has received in the last three years (1) in total and (2) regarding child maintenance; and of those, how many were found in favour of the complainant.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
ICE does not accept every case that it receives, for example, ICE cannot accept a case until it has exhausted DWP’s complaints process (premature referrals), nor can it accept those outside its jurisdiction.
ICE only considers complaints about maladministration or service failures and cannot deal with complaints about matters of law, that are, or have been, subject to legal proceedings, about how any of the businesses fulfil their responsibilities as an employer or any that involve the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman or the Northern Ireland Ombudsman.
Once a case has been accepted, if appropriate, ICE will attempt to broker a resolution with the customer before gathering all of the evidence relating to the case. Where resolution cannot be reached, evidence is collated, and an investigation is conducted. On the basis of findings made, the case may be upheld/partially upheld in favour of the customer or not upheld. The number of cases received, accepted, and upheld/partially upheld, is in the table below.
| 2022-23 | 2023-24 | 2024-25 |
Total* Received | 4911 | 5824 | 7149 |
CMS Received | 1309 | 1519 | 1827 |
Total* Accepted | 1711 | 1861 | 2214 |
CMS Accepted | 785 | 731 | 981 |
Total* upheld/partially upheld | 584 | 765 | 893 |
CMS upheld/partially upheld | 311 | 474 | 459 |
*ICE reviews complaints made by customers of the Department for Work and Pensions (which includes the Child Maintenance Service), Northern Ireland Department for Communities – benefits, pensions and child maintenance only, contracted DWP services and Pension Protection Fund.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government when they intend to commence sections 2, 3 and 4(1) to (4) of the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders (ALOs), removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order. Introducing this process should enable the Child Maintenance Service to take faster action against those paying parents who actively avoid their responsibilities and get money to children more quickly. We are working with His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government to establish a process for implementing ALOs and plan to introduce regulations to Parliament by the end of this year.
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, in the current and each of the last four financial years, how many 16–24 year olds are receiving personal independence payments at (1) the lower rate for daily living, (2) the higher rate for daily living, (3) the lower rate for mobility, and (4) the higher rate for mobility; and of those, how many have depression and anxiety as the primary reason for receiving that benefit.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The table below shows the number of claimants aged 16-24 receiving the different award types for both daily living and mobility components of Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and for those aged 16-24 whose primary condition was Anxiety or Depression.
Table 1: Number of claimants aged 16-24 years receiving PIP in England and Wales by award rate for Daily Living and Mobility, split by all medical conditions and Anxiety and Depression only.
|
| 2020_21 | 2021_22 | 2022_23 | 2023_24 | 2024_25* | |||||
DL | Mob | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D | All | A&D |
Enh | Enh | 111,700 | 4,800 | 132,900 | 6,900 | 164,600 | 10,300 | 196,700 | 14,000 | 216,500 | 16,400 |
Std | 39,200 | 5,400 | 45,100 | 7,400 | 53,300 | 10,700 | 63,300 | 15,200 | 70,400 | 18,200 | |
Nil | 16,500 | 3,300 | 15,200 | 3,200 | 15,300 | 3,500 | 14,700 | 3,700 | 14,700 | 3,800 | |
Std | Enh | 8,100 | 1,100 | 9,100 | 1,200 | 10,800 | 1,600 | 12,200 | 1,900 | 13,300 | 2,100 |
Std | 15,900 | 3,300 | 16,900 | 3,600 | 19,200 | 4,800 | 21,600 | 6,100 | 23,500 | 6,900 | |
Nil | 25,600 | 7,900 | 25,600 | 8,300 | 26,800 | 9,100 | 27,300 | 9,700 | 27,900 | 9,900 | |
Nil | Enh | 4,700 | 400 | 5,400 | 500 | 6,700 | 800 | 7,900 | 1,000 | 8,900 | 1,200 |
Std | 3,600 | 800 | 4,000 | 1,000 | 5,400 | 1,700 | 7,000 | 2,400 | 8,600 | 3,000 | |
Notes:
Asked by: Baroness Coffey (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many people have applied for Pension Credit since 5 July 2024; and how many have been approved.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Pension credit statistics are collated on a weekly (Monday – Sunday) cycle. This means we cannot provide a response aligned to 5 July 2024. However, we can provide a count of claims and awards from week commencing 8 July 2024, as follows:
DWP currently works to a planned timescale of 50 working days to clear Pension Credit claims.
Please note, the awarded volumes since 8 July 2024 will include some claims that were made before 5 July 2024. This is because the Department currently reports clearance times by the week the claim was cleared, rather than the week the claim was made.
Statistics on Pension Credit award volumes were published on 28 November 2024. This publication includes weekly numbers of applications that were received, awarded and not awarded, up to 17 November 2024. Pension Credit applications and awards: November 2024 - GOV.UK.
The next publication of Pension Credit application statistics is due around the end of February 2025 and will cover the data up to week commencing 10 February 2025.