Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Take-up of the Department’s CMS scheme is substantially lower than it expected.
Conclusion
Take-up of the Department’s CMS scheme is substantially lower than it expected. The Department estimated that 18% of separated families used the CMS scheme in 2019– 20, compared to its expectation of 33% by 2019.14 In 2021, the Department found that 49% of non-resident parents and 35% of parents with care without any arrangements wanted to change this. This suggests that there may be 500,000 non-resident parents and 350,000 parents with care (equivalent to around 60% of receiving parents on the current CMS scheme caseload) who do not have a child maintenance arrangement but would like one.15
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government
Not Addressed
2a. PAC Recommendation: The Department should: • within one year, develop a clear action plan to assess, tackle and monitor the ‘take-up gap’ between the number of separated parents that would benefit from using its statutory CMS scheme (and other relevant support services) and those that actually use them 2.1 The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. Recommendation implemented 2.2 A new digital service Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance was introduced in November 2021. Since its introduction, applications to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) have increased by 38% in the first quarter to March 2022 - Child Maintenance Service Statistics, data to March 2022 - with further increases expected following the full roll out in April 2022. Rather than a specific action plan, we regularly assess the impact on the composition of our caseload and the individual characteristics of the increasing number of applicants for the Child Maintenance Service as more people use the digital service. 2.3 Ongoing policy work involves the development of referral processes within the Universal Credit (UC) programme. A timetable for referrals will be confirmed once the UC Programme has completed its schedule for migrating customers from legacy benefits. 2.4 Child maintenance can be a significant help to meet the cost of living and the department is developing a communication programme to promote its benefits.