Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the National Audit Office report entitled Child maintenance, published in March 2022, whether he has taken recent steps to help improve levels of customer service at the Child Maintenance Service.

The Minister for Lords and officials appeared at the Work and Pensions Select committee on 18 January 23 to discuss ‘Children in poverty: Child Maintenance Service’ which included discussion on recommendations from NAO and the domestic abuse review conducted by Dr Samantha Callan.

These discussions highlighted the following;

• Continuing to improve our service, in particular our online services through the wider Departmental Service Modernisation.

o Services that have been made available online and therefore 24/7 and, in many cases, now delivered via automation and therefore faster and more responsive.

o The introduction of online Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance service providing support to separated parents in managing their own affairs as well as making the CMS more accessible.

o A wider organisational redesign is underway with a key priority to improve customer experience.

• Dr Samantha Callan Review recommendations:

o Recommendations on training have been adopted: domestic abuse awareness training is in place and training is being reviewed with a view to strengthening.

o Recommendation on single caseworker treatment is being piloted currently.

• Use of the DWP customer experience survey to track satisfaction levels and provide insight.

o The Department’s 2020/21 Customer Experience Survey and the CMS Customer Experience Survey are currently unpublished, so we are unable to share the findings at this time.

o The reason for the delay is because of the impacts of Covid on the survey, resulting in an extended QA process.

o Steps are in place to publish the findings and the final sign off procedures are currently taking place within the Department, with the intention to publish by Summer 2023.

• Real time customer feedback has been piloted now considering how to introduce at scale.
• Sessions planned in March for MP researchers to support them in constituency casework relating to Child Maintenance.