Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Child Maintenance Service do not send arrears letters to people who pay on time.

Robust processes are in place to ensure correspondence issued by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is accurate and reflects each customer’s payment status. CMS systems monitor compliance of expected payments and where payments are not made in full and on time, arrears or missed payment notifications will be issued. Where a payment has been made in full and on time, no arrears letter should be sent.

The CMS are committed to modernising and regularly reviews processes and updates guidance to staff to minimise errors and improve accuracy.