Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has made an assessment of the potential merits of extending the Eligibility Verification Measure established under the Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act 2025 to the Child Maintenance Service for the purpose of identifying financial resources available to parents who have failed to meet their child maintenance liabilities.

The Eligibility Verification Measure is designed to identify incorrect payments of benefits specified in legislation. The Department does not share personal information with financial institutions to identify individuals. Instead, financial institutions use payment reference information associated with relevant benefit to identify accounts within scope.

As the measure is about benefit accuracy and relies on a link between the Department, a financial institution and an account receiving a relevant benefit, it cannot be used to identify the financial resources of individuals who have failed to meet their child maintenance liabilities. Under EVM, the Department receives limited information from a financial institution only when an eligibility indicator has been met.

While additional benefits may be brought within scope through regulations, subject to Parliamentary approval, child maintenance is not a benefit and therefore could not be brought within scope through this mechanism.

However, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) does have powers to obtain information from third parties where required to support the assessment, collection and enforcement of child maintenance. These include information-gathering powers under the Child Support Information Regulations 2008, the use of credit reference agency data, and the ability to seek information from financial institutions in appropriate enforcement cases.

Alongside this, planned reforms to Direct Pay will give the CMS greater oversight of payment compliance by moving to a single service through which the CMS will monitor and transfer maintenance payments. This will allow the CMS to identify and respond to missed payments more quickly, strengthening its ability to address non-compliance at an earlier stage.

The Government keeps all its powers under review to ensure they remain effective and proportionate. At present, the focus is on maximising the use of existing powers in the CMS to identify income and assets and secure maintenance for children.