Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 11
11
The Department told us that it “absolutely” wanted parents who were not receiving maintenance because...
Conclusion
The Department told us that it “absolutely” wanted parents who were not receiving maintenance because the other parent was not willing to pay to feel that they can come to the Child Maintenance Service and that it will support them. It explained that, since closing CSA cases at the end of 2018, it had “much more opportunity to focus on things like building awareness and growing the caseload”. As part of this, it told us that it had been providing training to Universal Credit Work Coaches on the CMS and what it does, and that it was putting more services online to improve the accessibility of its Options Service (a mandatory service for those applying to the CMS designed to help families make an informed choice about arranging maintenance).16
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.