Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to tackle the increase in levels of unpaid child maintenance.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) take rigorous action to collect unpaid maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of enforcement powers. This approach is driven by the Payment Compliance Strategy increasing CMG compliance influencing activities with paying parents to tackle non-paying cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours.

CMS have worked in partnership with Courts and Enforcement Agents following the restrictions on enforcement activity during the initial phase of the pandemic in 2020 to quickly return to normal operating practice.

There has been a consistent downward trend in the proportion of unpaid maintenance as a proportion of maintenance arranged since 2017, falling from 12.5% in 2017 to 8.5% in September 2021 (Source – National Tables - table six ‘ how much maintenance CMS has arranged March 2015 to September 2021).