Source · Select Committees · Work and Pensions Committee
Recommendation 31
31
Acknowledged
Child Maintenance Service plagued by issues of ineffective enforcement and unaffordable payments
Conclusion
In summary: Our inquiry has found a number of issues with the Child Maintenance Service that need to be addressed. Receiving parents continue to report great frustration at ineffective and slow enforcement. Paying parents have described distress and being pushed into poverty by the unaffordability of child maintenance payments. This harms the effectiveness of a system with an important role to play in tackling child poverty in separated families. (Paragraph 116) 50 Children in poverty: Child Maintenance Service
Government Response Summary
The government thanks the Committee for its thorough inquiry into the Child Maintenance Service and welcomes the report, noting its importance in tackling child poverty and stating that detailed responses to recommendations are provided subsequently.
Government Response
Acknowledged
HM Government
Acknowledged
We would like to thank the Committee for conducting such a thorough inquiry into the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) as part of their work looking at children in poverty. The CMS can play an effective role in helping lift children out of poverty. Through both family-based arrangements (FBAs) and CMS arrangements, we estimate receiving parents in separated families received £2.6 billion annually in child maintenance payments in the three financial years ending 2020 to 2022. Overall, we estimate that on average these payments kept 160,000 children out of absolute low income on an after-housing costs basis each year. The Government welcomes the Committee’s report and our response to the recommendations are set out below.