Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps she is taking to ensure that all parents receive the correct amount of child maintenance payment on time.

A principle of child maintenance is to increase levels of cooperation between separated parents and encourage parents to meet their responsibilities to provide their children with financial support.

Where a family-based child maintenance arrangement is not suitable the Child Maintenance Service offers a statutory scheme, Direct Pay and Collect and Pay, for those parents who need it.

To ensure Child Maintenance calculations are accurate the department uses proportionate and cost-effective controls, such as:

• use of verified income from HMRC and benefit systems as outlined in legislation and a principal part of service design.
• use of child benefit systems to verify qualifying child(ren)
• procedures and policy to request additional verification
• a dedicated Financial Investigation Unit who addresses allegations of misrepresentation and fraud
• a robust mandatory reconsideration (MR) and appeals process
• a robust 3 Tier Quality Framework.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their financial obligations to children and the Child Maintenance Service will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. 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. The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service. Please refer to tables 4, 5, 6.1 and 6.2 of the National Tables for data on child maintenance arrangements and collection. national-tables-child-maintenance-service-to-june-2024.ods