Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service applications were closed as incomplete in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) plays a vital role in safeguarding the financial welfare of children by handling applications for maintenance. However, some applications are closed as incomplete, commonly due to missing or insufficient information.
Applications which are deemed substantially incomplete, with entire missing sections, can be closed immediately. If an application is partially incomplete, CMS sends a development request asking for the missing information within a set timeframe. If a response is received the application can proceed, failure to respond typically leads to closure.
While we hold data on the overall volume of case closures, this information does not include a breakdown by incomplete cases. Producing this level of detail would require significant manual analysis and exceed the cost limits set.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, which international child maintenance systems his Department has reviewed in the last five years as comparators for reform of the Child Maintenance Service; and what key lessons were identified.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service keeps international practice under review and draws on lessons from other systems where appropriate. In recent years, we have looked at approaches in countries including Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the United States.
While international approaches differ and direct comparisons are challenging, our review indicates that the UK Child Maintenance system is effective at tackling child poverty. In the UK, child maintenance payments do not reduce benefit entitlements, which boosts household income and strengthens efforts to reduce child poverty. By separating child maintenance from benefits, the UK approach strengthens its impact on reducing poverty and may improve incentives to pay, ensuring the support is meaningful for both parents.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what training modules on domestic abuse and financial coercion are mandatory for Child Maintenance Service staff; and how many staff have completed that training in the last 12 months.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department for Work and Pensions take domestic abuse and financial coercion extremely seriously and ensures that all Child Maintenance Service (CMS) colleagues are equipped to provide appropriate support to customers.
All CMS colleagues complete mandatory training on Domestic Abuse, which includes content on financial abuse. This training enables staff to recognise, understand, and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing or have experienced domestic abuse. The Department regularly reviews and updates mandatory training to maintain its relevance and effectiveness.
In addition to mandatory training, the Department provides refresher training on Domestic Abuse to reinforce understanding and maintain high standards of service.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Deduction from Earnings Orders and Deduction Orders from bank accounts are active.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses Deduction from Earnings Orders and Deduction Orders from bank accounts to help ensure parents meet their maintenance responsibilities. The number of active orders varies over time as cases progress through compliance and enforcement activity.
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025, with detailed quarterly statistics on CMS Paying Parents available on Stat-Xplore.
Using the ‘Method of Payment’ variable can identify the number of paying parents who used ‘Deduction from Earnings Order’ or ‘Deduction from Earnings Request’ methods to pay Child Maintenance liabilities, as at the end of each quarter.
Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access guidance on how to extract the information required.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
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 reduce the backlog of Child Maintenance Service enforcement cases and increase compliance.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department does not have a backlog of Child Maintenance Service (CMS) enforcement cases. All cases requiring enforcement action are being actively progressed in accordance with established operational procedures.
The Department continues to strengthen enforcement activity to ensure that parents meet their financial responsibilities. In recent years, it has expanded the range of enforcement powers available to the CMS, enhanced case‑handling processes, and invested in additional capability to take timely action when payments are missed.
As a result of this sustained focus, published statistics show a significant increase in compliance, with the proportion of paying parents who paid some maintenance rising from 64% in the quarter ending September 2022 to 74% in the quarter ending September 2025. The Department remains committed to driving further improvement.
System improvements have been introduced to allow earlier identification of cases at risk of non‑payment, enabling quicker action to re‑establish compliance when payments fail or become irregular.
As part of wider reforms, the Government proposes moving to a single service by removing Direct Pay and expanding the Collect and Pay service. This will create a fully monitored system in which all payments are visible in real time, making non‑compliance easier to detect and allowing faster enforcement intervention.
To strengthen enforcement further, work is underway to introduce administrative liability orders (ALOs), which would remove the need to apply to the courts and reduce the current process to around six weeks in most cases. The Department is working with HMCTS and the Scottish Government to introduce regulations to Parliament as soon as possible.
The CMS remains focused on ensuring that maintenance is paid promptly and in full.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of Child Maintenance Service safeguarding procedures for parents who have experienced domestic abuse; and whether changes have been made to those procedures recently.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse very seriously and is committed to ensuring victims and survivors of abuse get the help and support they need to use the CMS safely.
The CMS has substantially strengthened its procedures and processes to support customers who are experiencing domestic abuse. They will not be complacent and will always look at ways to go even further.
The CMS has refreshed its approach and understanding of domestic abuse to include financial and coercive control and better awareness of how abuse affects all genders.
A programme of refresher training has been underway for all existing CMS colleagues during 2025.
The CMS has access to resources which help caseworkers provide signposting to supporting organisations, and a Domestic Abuse Plan which includes clear steps to follow in order to support customers who are experiencing abuse. The list of resources and Domestic Abuse Plan are regularly reviewed.
As well as the Domestic Abuse Plan, the CMS responds to cases involving domestic abuse in several ways, including by acting as an intermediary in Direct Pay cases, and providing advice on how to set up bank accounts with a centralised sort code to limit the risk of a parent’s location being traced.
There is a specialist team in CMS who deliver targeted support to parents subject to the most challenging and complex domestic abuse.
We have implemented a more efficient process to move a case to collect and pay when the receiving parent reports missed payments.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the annual collection rate is for child maintenance under (a) Collect and Pay and (b) Direct Pay.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025. Table 4 and Table 5 of the accompanying National tables provide information on the amount of child maintenance that should have been paid through Direct Pay and Collect and Pay arrangements, as well as the amounts that remain unpaid under each method.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of Child Maintenance Service delays and errors on child poverty levels and low-income households.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
We know that children in separated families are poorer and more likely to live in poverty than those in non-separated families. Child maintenance payments through both statutory and non-statutory arrangements keep approximately 120,000 children out of poverty each year.
The Department legally relies on data from HM Revenue & Customs and its own benefits data to assess 90% of paying parents earned income and benefit status, which are key parts of the maintenance calculation and maintains a stable accuracy rate of 99.5%
CMS undertake regular quality assurance checks and continually monitors processes to identify improvements.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children are included in Child Maintenance Service cases in which the paying parent has been subject to three or more separate enforcement actions for non payment.
Answered by Andrew Western - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Work and Pensions)
The information requested on the number of children in Child Maintenance Service cases which have been subject to three or more separate enforcement actions is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
Asked by: Tom Tugendhat (Conservative - Tonbridge)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service cases in each of the last five years have had a safeguarding flag applied due to domestic abuse concerns; and how many of those cases involved Collect and Pay arrangements.
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 Child Maintenance Serviced (CMS) takes the issue of domestic abuse very seriously and is committed to ensuring victims and survivors of abuse get the help and support they need to use the CMS safely.
CMS caseworkers are provided with domestic abuse training to ensure they understand, recognise and respond safely and appropriately to customers who are experiencing domestic abuse, or are survivors of domestic abuse. A programme of refresher training has been underway for all existing CMS colleagues during 2025.
There is a specialist team in place in CMS who deliver targeted support to parents subject to the most challenging and complex domestic abuse.