Children: Maintenance

(asked on 23rd June 2025) - View Source

Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment his Department has made of the adequacy of the (a) accuracy and (b) transparency of Special Expenses calculations by the Child Maintenance Service for (i) flights, (ii) fuel and (iii) other high-cost contact travel.


Answered by
Andrew Western Portrait
Andrew Western
Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This question was answered on 30th June 2025

The Department for Work and Pensions and Child Maintenance Service rigorously monitors accuracy as part of our service ambition to further reduce error and increase our accuracy levels. The National Audit Office set a target of monetary value errors under 1%. This standard is consistently met.

Since applications for special expense variations relate to the Paying Parents’ own expenditure, Paying Parents are expected to provide any information and evidence needed to support their application. Guidance for DWP decision makers on child maintenance, in relation to Variation decisions is available in the following link Volume 3 - Variations (Chapters 27-36).

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