Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of fees to use the Child Maintenance Service's Collect and Pay system on people using that system.

The Government is dedicated to ensuring parents meet their obligations to children, taking robust enforcement action against those who do not.

Cases in Collect & Pay represent the most difficult cases, as many of these have been unwilling to pay voluntarily or have not been compliant in a Direct Pay arrangement. Cases where the paying parent has missed payments or demonstrated behaviour that suggests they are unlikely to pay, can be put on the Collect & Pay service. Fees only apply to the Collect and Pay Service. A fee of 20% is added to what the paying parent needs to pay, while 4% is deducted from maintenance paid to receiving parents.

Fees were introduced in 2014, with the objectives of subsidising the cost of the service; encouraging greater collaboration and more family-based arrangements; and encouraging compliance.

When Collect and Pay charges were introduced, an assessment was carried out by the previous government and published in The Child Maintenance Reforms; 30 Month Review of charging. The government response to the assessment was that application fees may influence some parents’ decisions regarding their maintenance arrangement.

On 8 May 2024 the consultation Child Maintenance: Improving the collection and transfer of payments was published by the previous government before being extended on the 31 July by the current government. The consultation included a range of proposals with the key one being to remove the Direct Pay service and consolidate the CMS into a single streamlined service that monitors and transfers all payments. In addition, it also proposed a new fee structure of just 2% for receiving parents, deducted from maintenance received; 2% for compliant paying parents, on top of maintenance owed; and 20% for non-compliant paying parents, on top of maintenance owed.

Following consideration of public responses concerning fees and other proposals in the consultation, and subsequent ministerial decisions, next steps will be detailed in the Government Response, which will be published in due course.