Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service calculations were revised following (a) Mandatory Reconsideration and (b) appeal in each of the last five years; and what the total value of revised liabilities was in each year.

Mandatory Reconsideration (MR) is the process where a parent asks the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to review a decision before appealing to His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service. It can be requested at any stage of a case or after an unsuccessful application. If CMS finds the original decision incorrect or receives new information, the decision may be revised.

The CMS is committed to ensuring decisions are timely, accurate, fair, and based on all relevant information provided by parents.

The Department publishes quarterly statistics for the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) and the latest statistics are currently available to June 2025.

Table 9 of the latest National tables includes information on the total number of mandatory reconsideration requests received by the CMS and the outcomes occurring each quarter, and the number and percentage cleared within 28 days of receipt, from quarter ending June 2015 to quarter ending June 2025.

Table 10 of the latest National tables includes information on the total number of appeals made by parents to His Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service to review a decision made by the CMS each quarter, from quarter ending June 2015 to quarter ending June 2025.

The information requested on the average time it takes the Child Maintenance Service to review these requests and, total value of revised liabilities, is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.