Children: Maintenance
(asked on 22nd May 2025) - View Source
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the official statistics Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to December 2024, published 25 March, how many of the 68,000 paying parents who paid no maintenance via the Collect and Pay service in the last quarter of 2024 are undergoing an enforcement process; and how many of those have (1) agreed a repayment plan, (2) had deductions from earning applied, (3) had deductions from benefits applied, (4) had a request for deductions from earnings applied, (5) had a deduction order from a bank account or saving account applied, (6) had assets seized, (7) had passports seized, (8) had driving licences seized, (9) had criminal charged laid, and (10) had other enforcement action taken.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a wide range of enforcement powers and is committed to using these fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families to tackle non-paying Collect and Pay cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours. CMS will always attempt to secure alternative methods of payments to gain improved compliance in cases where this fails.
The CMS Collect and Pay service with ‘nil compliance’, i.e. those who paid no maintenance, in the quarter ending December 2024, is published on Stat-Xplore and shown in the table below.
Method of payment for Paying Parents using the CMS Collect and Pay service with ‘nil compliance’, October to December 2024
Method of Payment | No of Paying Parents with nil compliance |
No Collect & Pay Liability | .. |
Bank Head Office Collection Account | .. |
Direct Debit | 751 |
Deduction from Earnings Order | 8,410 |
Deduction from Earnings Request | 58 |
Deduction from Benefits | 24,471 |
Standing Order (Default) | 30,834 |
Payment Offset | 9 |
Unspecified | 92 |
Standing Order (Voluntary) | 3,051 |
Not available | .. |
Total | 67,673 |
Source: Stat-Xplore
- Statistical disclosure control has been applied to this table to avoid the release of confidential data. Totals may not sum due to the disclosure control applied.
- ".." denotes a nil or negligible number of claimants or award amount based on a nil or negligible number of claimants.
- The Paying Parent's compliance rate is calculated across the whole calendar quarter.
- Figures only include Paying Parents who were using the service as of the end of the calendar quarter.
Quarterly enforcement statistics are regularly published in the CMS National Tables, however it is not possible to link these statistics to the published compliance statistics within the disproportionate cost limit.