Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the National Audit Office report entitled Child maintenance, published in March 2022, whether his Department has taken recent steps to help increase the number of successful child maintenance arrangements.

As at September 2022 there were 872,000 children covered by Child Maintenance Service (CMS) arrangements. The service has recorded an increase in the number of children covered by CMS arrangements increasing by 25,700 between June 2022 and September 2022.

Under the Direct Pay service Child Maintenance Service provides the calculation and no further use of the service is required. Parents are issued a text message three months after they set up their arrangement and at each annual review, to check the arrangement is still meeting their requirements. If they cannot arrange payments between themselves or a Paying Parent does not keep up with the payments, the Receiving Parent can ask to switch to the Collect and Pay Service.

61% of all Child Maintenance Service arrangements use Direct Pay with 37% using Collect and Pay.

At the end of September 2022:

• 548,800 children were covered by 384,600 Direct Pay arrangements
• 304,200 children were covered by 231,000 Collect & Pay arrangements
  • 164,800 of these children were covered by 117,500 Collect & Pay arrangements where the Paying Parent paid some maintenance during the quarter
  • 139,400 of these children were covered by 113,500 Collect & Pay arrangements where no maintenance was paid during the quarter

The number of children covered by CMS arrangements has increased steadily over the last 2 years.

(Source – Child Maintenance Service published statistics – data to September 2022)

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to take rigorous action to collect 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 CMS compliance influencing activities to tackle non-paying cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours. CMS applies a Continuous Improvement focus to Enforcement strategy and processes.

Total child maintenance collected using enforcement actions amounted to £36.1 million in the quarter to September 2022 compared with £33.8 in September 2021 and £28.4 in September 2020. This rise in collections is linked directly to increased collections through Deductions from Earnings Orders, lump sum and regular deductions taken directly from paying parents’ bank accounts, Liability Order and Bailiff actions and making full use of all available sanctions.

(Source – Child Maintenance Service published Statistics : National Tables – table 7.1 ‘Enforcement Actions’, April 2015 to September 2022).

As a result of a focussed effort to increase enforcement activity and influence Paying Parents to pay their child maintenance £49.4 million was paid through the Collect & Pay service in the quarter to September 2022 compared to £45.6 million in the quarter ending March 2022 when the NAO report was published.

(Source – Child Maintenance Service published Statistics : National Tables – table 5 ‘Money Due and Paid each quarter’ January 2015 to September 2022).

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 8.2% in September 2022.

(Source – Child Maintenance Service published Statistics : National Tables - table 6 ‘ how much maintenance CMS has arranged March 2015 to September 2022).