Asked by: Sarah Hall (Labour (Co-op) - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to (a) improve the Child Maintenance Service and (b) ensure that payments are made.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government’s aim is for the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to remove the direct pay service in order to tackle non-compliance more quickly. This change will be made when Parliamentary time allows. Moving to a single, strengthened Collect and Pay system will allow the CMS to monitor all payments, identify missed or partial payments immediately, and take faster enforcement action. Ahead of this change, the CMS is already moving noncompliant parents more quickly from Direct Pay to Collect and Pay.
Where compliance cannot be achieved, the CMS has a range of strong enforcement powers that are designed to get money flowing quickly, prevent the build-up of arrears and ensure children get the financial support they deserve. These powers include the ability to deduct directly from the paying parent’s earnings or bank accounts and disqualifications from holding or obtaining driving licenses and passports.
To further improve arrears collection, the CMS will introduce administrative liability orders (ALOs) to replace the current court based process. This will streamline enforcement, reduce delays, and help the CMS act more quickly against parents who avoid their responsibilities. Work with HM Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government is underway, and regulations will be brought to Parliament as soon as possible.
Asked by: Sarah Hall (Labour (Co-op) - Warrington South)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to ensure that the Child Maintenance Service is able to identify hidden earnings.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Where a paying parent changes jobs, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses real-time information from HMRC where available, to quickly identify new employment and adjust maintenance calculations accordingly.
People who are self-employed are required to keep accurate records of their business income and expenses for tax purposes. HMRC can charge penalties for inaccurate reporting where it results in tax being unpaid.
Where the information available from HMRC does not give rise to a liability which accurately reflects what a customer believes a paying parent should be paying, the customer can seek a Variation. Variations allow the CMS to look at some circumstances which are not covered by the basic maintenance calculation. A variation can be requested on grounds of diversion of income. This is when the paying parent may be able to control the amount of income they receive. This includes diverting income to another person or for another purpose (including excessive pension contributions).
Cases involving complex income can be investigated by the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU). This is a specialist team which can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the Child Maintenance Service is given.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many consolatory payments were made to (a) paying and (b) receiving parents by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
The department hold records of how many consolatory payments were authorised for Child Maintenance Service customers. This information is provided in the table. We are unable to supply a breakdown of payments made to paying and receiving parents without additional work at disproportionate cost.
Year | No. of consolatory payments authorised |
2022/2023 | 2107 |
2023/2024 | 2634 |
2024/2025 | 2189 |
Asked by: Max Wilkinson (Liberal Democrat - Cheltenham)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Child Maintenance Service's arrears department is (i) office based and (ii) staffed through home working; how many people work for that team; what their response time is; and whether that response time is in line with their service level agreement.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) arrears department operates using a combination of office‑based and hybrid working arrangements. CMS currently offers the opportunity to work a minimum of 60% of time in the office with 40% at home, although staff can choose to work more time in the office if they wish. Some choose to work in the office full time. The only exceptions to this are individual requirements as part of a reasonable adjustment. Hybrid working is not a contractual right and is therefore subject to change. There are currently 771 employees working in the arrears team.
CMS monitors the performance of the arrears function. Caseworker response times remain consistent across both office‑based and home‑working arrangements and continue to operate fully within the Service Level Agreement for the arrears function.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many an what percentage of cases concerning the Child Maintenance Service referred to Independent Case Examiners were (a) wholly upheld, (b) partially upheld and (c) wholly dismissed in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Independent Case Examiner publishes an Annual Report each year. Data relating to upheld rates for DWP and its individual service lines, including the Child Maintenance Service, for the years being requested, can be found within those reports.
The Independent Case Examiner’s Annual Reports are available on gov.uk. DWP complaints: Annual reports by the Independent Case Examiner - GOV.UK
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his Department has made on (a) improving access to and (b) streamlining the enforcement processes of the Child Maintenance Service.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Government intends to remove the Direct Pay service and thereby speed up detection of non-compliance. Moving to a single, strengthened Collect and Pay system will allow the CMS to monitor all payments, identify missed or partial payments immediately, and take faster enforcement action. Ahead of this change, the CMS is already moving non-compliant parents more quickly from Direct Pay to Collect and Pay.
To further improve arrears collection, the CMS will introduce administrative liability orders (ALOs) to replace the current court-based process. This will streamline enforcement, reduce delays, and help the CMS act more quickly against parents who avoid their responsibilities. Work with HM Courts and Tribunals Service and the Scottish Government is underway, and regulations will be brought to Parliament as soon as possible.
Asked by: Matt Vickers (Conservative - Stockton West)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many and what percentage of cases concerning the Child Maintenance Service referred to the Parliamentary Health and Health Service Ombudsman were (a) wholly upheld, (b) partially upheld and (c) wholly dismissed in each of the last three years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
This is a matter for the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s office. The Ombudsman publishes case statistics annually on her website: Publications | Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO)
Asked by: Ian Sollom (Liberal Democrat - St Neots and Mid Cambridgeshire)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what progress his department has made on the review of the Child Maintenance Service calculation announced on 24 June 2025.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We will announce further details about the publication of the Government’s consultation regarding the child maintenance calculation in due course.
Given the significant amount of time since the child maintenance calculation was updated, we need to assess carefully the impact of any proposed changes on all parents that use the CMS to ensure they effectively support families and children and that they are introduced in a way which works well for CMS customers.
Asked by: Zöe Franklin (Liberal Democrat - Guildford)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to prevent enforcement correspondence being issued by the Child Maintenance Service where maintenance has been paid early but outside the Service’s payment window.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
Correspondence issued by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) referencing enforcement action as being considered should only be issued if a customer has missed payments due and has fallen into arrears.
CMS is currently reviewing its processes to ensure that this principle is consistently applied and that such correspondence is not issued where payments have been made.
Asked by: David Chadwick (Liberal Democrat - Brecon, Radnor and Cwm Tawe)
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 Child Maintenance Service policy in establishing the Paying Parent, in the context of changes in societal norms and the increase in co-parenting and shared parenting arrangements.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The person providing primary care of the child and with whom the child lives is entitled to make an application for child maintenance. This is known as the receiving parent. The receiving parent is determined by which parent looks after the child most of the time. For example, with whom the child has their home and who usually provides day to day care for the child.
The Child Maintenance Calculation can be amended to reflect co-parenting and shared parenting arrangements. A paying parent’s maintenance liability can be reduced where they have overnight care of a child for whom they pay maintenance. This reduction is intended to broadly reflect the cost associated with any overnight care given. The paying parent must have overnight care of any qualifying children for at least 52 nights a year, equivalent to 1 night per week. The amount payable is reduced to a maximum of 50 per cent within bands based on the number of days overnight care is provided over a 12-month period.
The CMS uses bands based on the number of days overnight care is provided, to ensure a fair, consistent, and administratively efficient method of accounting for the costs borne by each parent.
If the CMS is satisfied that both parents have equal day-to-day care for the child, in addition to sharing overnight care, there is no requirement for either parent to pay child maintenance.
There is no statutory definition of day-to-day care, our definition is broadly aligned with that of Child Benefit, where an ‘overall care test’ is used. This provides consistency across government and receipt of Child Benefit is regarded as a good indicator of who is entitled to child maintenance payments.