Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether the Department plans to introduce routine monitoring of compliance with child maintenance arrangements under the Direct Pay service; and what estimate it has made of the proportion of maintenance due under those arrangements that is actually paid.

The Government plans to reform child maintenance by removing Direct Pay and streamlining the service into one service type where the CMS will monitor and transfer all payments. Managing all CMS cases in one service will allow the CMS to tackle non-compliance faster and take swift action as soon as payments break down.

While we’re not able to monitor payments on Direct Pay, departmental research found that 60% of receiving parents using Direct Pay reported receiving all of the maintenance due, while a further 13% reported receiving most of the maintenance due. In addition, 40% reported always receiving payments on time.