Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total amount of child maintenance arrears collected through enforcement action to date.

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.

The Department publishes Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics regularly and the relevant information can be accessed from Table 6.1 Enforcement Actions in the supplementary tables in the latest release.

Between April 2015 and June 2024, the CMS has collected a total of £80.8m from Paying Parents via enforcement actions taken to collect both the maintenance arranged by the CMS, and Child Support Agency arrears that have been transitioned to CMS systems. This may include actions taken against parents for whom no ongoing maintenance has been arranged under the CMS.