The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is delivering a Modernisation Programme to improve customer access, efficiency and transparency. This includes integrated online application services, the My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC) service, which provides customers with online access to case information and payment schedules, and Customer Connect, which enables secure online communication between parents and caseworkers. Telephone and assisted digital support remain available for customers who need additional assistance.

The programme has also introduced improved digital communications, enhanced data sharing to support faster and more accurate maintenance calculations, and predictive analytics to help identify cases at risk of non-compliance, which allows us to review the cases more swiftly and take action to ensure compliance is maintained

The Department continually monitors the effectiveness of the CMS through published statistics and operational performance measures. CMS services are delivered nationally and the Department does not routinely assess effectiveness or performance at parliamentary constituency level.

Safeguarding is of the utmost importance and is embedded throughout the day-to-day delivery of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). All CMS colleagues are required to complete mandatory domestic abuse training every two years. In the intervening year, colleagues complete a knowledge check, and refresher training is provided where needed. This ensures they maintain the right skills and knowledge when dealing with customers who have experienced domestic abuse. CMS has collaborated with specialist charities and stakeholder organisations to modernise its domestic abuse training so caseworkers can better recognise coercive and controlling behaviour and signpost parents appropriately. The Department continues to work with these stakeholders to review and enhance its guidance, training and signposting resources.

All CMS staff know to refer certain cases to the dedicated Specialist Caseworker team, which provides targeted support for customers experiencing the most challenging or complex domestic abuse situations.

Once the CMS has moved a customer’s case into the Specialist Caseworker team, all inbound calls from that customer will route directly to that team. If the automated call routing cannot identify the customer, their call will go to a different team, but all caseworkers are trained to identify this and will reroute the call to the Specialist Caseworker Team.

CMS has strengthened telephony quality assurance arrangements and provided targeted training for team leaders on service standards, coaching and feedback. These measures are designed to support consistent service delivery and help ensure customers requiring specialist support are identified and transferred appropriately.

Safeguarding is of the utmost importance and is embedded throughout the day-to-day delivery of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). All CMS colleagues are required to complete mandatory domestic abuse training every two years. In the intervening year, colleagues complete a knowledge check, and refresher training is provided where needed. This ensures they maintain the right skills and knowledge when dealing with customers who have experienced domestic abuse. CMS has collaborated with specialist charities and stakeholder organisations to modernise its domestic abuse training so caseworkers can better recognise coercive and controlling behaviour and signpost parents appropriately. The Department continues to work with these stakeholders to review and enhance its guidance, training and signposting resources.

All CMS staff know to refer certain cases to the dedicated Specialist Caseworker team, which provides targeted support for customers experiencing the most challenging or complex domestic abuse situations.

Once the CMS has moved a customer’s case into the Specialist Caseworker team, all inbound calls from that customer will route directly to that team. If the automated call routing cannot identify the customer, their call will go to a different team, but all caseworkers are trained to identify this and will reroute the call to the Specialist Caseworker Team.

CMS has strengthened telephony quality assurance arrangements and provided targeted training for team leaders on service standards, coaching and feedback. These measures are designed to support consistent service delivery and help ensure customers requiring specialist support are identified and transferred appropriately.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is subject to regular independent scrutiny and review.

The CMS has recently been examined by a range of independent bodies, including the National Audit Office, the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, and Parliamentary Committees. The Department also commissioned an independent review by Dr Samantha Callan into the CMS's support for victims and survivors of domestic abuse and has taken forward a number of improvements in response to the review's recommendations.

The Government welcomes constructive challenge and recommendations from Parliament, independent reviewers, and oversight bodies, and carefully considers their findings when improving the service. At present, the Government has no plans to commission a further independent review of the CMS.

The Department publishes quarterly CMS complaints statistics, including the number of complaints received and closed, the proportion upheld or partially upheld, and cases considered by the Independent Case Examiner DWP Complaints Statistics - GOV.UK. . Independent scrutiny is also provided through the Independent Case Examiner's annual reports, which set out findings on maladministration and systemic issues identified through complaints.

Additional statistical data is also published in the Child Maintenance Client Funds Accounts Child maintenance: client funds accounts - GOV.UK.

The Department systematically carries out impact assessments on user groups, including within the CMS. It recognises that service issues may affect customers and uses complaints, feedback and operational performance information to identify issues and improve service delivery.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is delivering a Modernisation Programme to improve customer access, efficiency and transparency. This includes integrated online application services, the My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC) service, which provides customers with online access to case information and payment schedules, and Customer Connect, which enables secure online communication between parents and caseworkers. Telephone and assisted digital support remain available for customers who need additional assistance.

The programme has also introduced improved digital communications, enhanced data sharing to support faster and more accurate maintenance calculations, and predictive analytics to help identify cases at risk of non-compliance, which allows us to review the cases more swiftly and take action to ensure compliance is maintained.

The Child Maintenance Service does not hold specific information on the percentage of users who have reported difficulty using its telephone or online contact channels. Where the Department is made aware of issues affecting a customer’s use of its services, those issues are managed and tracked through to resolution. While the Department records where customers choose not to use the online service, it does not hold information on the specific reasons for this.

The Department has not undertaken any modelling on the potential for artificial intelligence to improve these channels.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is delivering a Modernisation Programme to improve customer access, efficiency and transparency. This includes integrated online application services, the My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC) service, which provides customers with online access to case information and payment schedules, and Customer Connect, which enables secure online communication between parents and caseworkers. Telephone and assisted digital support remain available for customers who need additional assistance.

The programme has also introduced improved digital communications, enhanced data sharing to support faster and more accurate maintenance calculations, and predictive analytics to help identify cases at risk of non compliance, which allows us to review the cases more swiftly and take action to ensure compliance is maintained.

The CMS complies with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) complaints service standard, to aim to resolve complaints or set a resolution plan within 15 working days. Where a complaint is complex and requires more time, the CMS will inform the complainant within this period of the next steps and when a response can be expected.

The CMS reviews overall resource supply and takes appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet current demands and regularly reviews complaint data, including insights from the Independent Case Examiner, to identify key themes and trends, which they use to drive improvements to the complaint handling process. Furthermore, lessons learned are regularly presented to operational teams, supporting them to deliver effective interventions at the initial stage of the complaint and thereby improve the overall customer experience.

The CMS remains focussed on taking pro active steps to improve the customer experience, developing its customer service strategy to focus on improving current and future service throughout the customer journey.

HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is a separate government department and is responsible for the listing, scheduling and management of tribunal hearings. While CMS provides information required in relation to appeals, the timing of tribunal hearings is a matter for HMCTS.

The Department aims to respond to complaints within 15 working days or, where a case will take longer than 15 days to respond to, set a resolution plan with the customer where cases are complex and may take longer. A resolution plan is a clear outline of how we will address and resolve a complaint. It sets out what actions will be taken, who is responsible, and the expected timescales for completing these actions.

Complaints about the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) are handled in line with the Department's complaints process. The Department keeps its processes under continual review and continues to improve the customer experience through wider service modernisation and quality improvement activity. As part of CMS’s ambition to continuously improve the service provided to customers, they will look for and action improvements to processes including complaints as part of the normal activities.

The Department recognises the important role of the Independent Case Examiner (ICE) in providing an independent review of complaints where customers remain dissatisfied after exhausting the Department's complaints process. The CMS works closely with ICE and considers the findings and recommendations arising from its investigations to identify opportunities for service improvement and to enhance the service provided to customers.

The Government is committed to ensuring that victims and survivors of domestic abuse receive the support they need when using the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

The CMS has a Specialist Caseworker team that provides targeted support for customers experiencing the most challenging or complex domestic abuse situations. All CMS caseworkers receive training to identify indicators of domestic abuse and to refer appropriate cases to the specialist team.

Once the CMS has moved a customer’s case into the Specialist Caseworker team, all inbound calls from that customer will route directly to that team. If the automated call routing cannot identify the customer, their call will go to a different team, but all caseworkers are trained to identify this and will reroute the call to the Specialist Caseworker Team. CMS has strengthened telephony quality assurance arrangements and provided targeted training for team leaders on service standards, coaching and feedback. These measures are designed to support consistent service delivery and help ensure customers requiring specialist support are identified and transferred appropriately.

The £156,000 annual gross income limit reflects the £3,000 gross weekly income threshold introduced with the 2012 child maintenance scheme. The scheme was designed to provide a standard formula for assessing child maintenance in most cases. Where a paying parent’s income exceeds this threshold, receiving parents may apply to the courts for a top-up order. Higher-income cases can involve more complex financial arrangements and, as intended when the scheme was introduced, the courts remain responsible for determining any additional maintenance above the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) calculation limit.

The Government keeps all aspects of the child maintenance system under consideration, but there are currently no plans to uprate this threshold.

A paying parent with gross weekly income of £3,000 or above would be liable for child maintenance of approximately £294 per week for one qualifying child, £392 per week for two qualifying children and £482 per week for three or more qualifying children under the statutory formula, before any adjustments for shared care or other factors.

Where a paying parent changes jobs, The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses real-time information from HMRC where available, to quickly identify new employment and adjust maintenance calculations accordingly.

People who are self-employed are required to keep accurate records of their business income and expenses for tax purposes. HMRC can charge penalties for inaccurate reporting where it results in tax being unpaid.

Where the information available from HMRC does not give rise to a liability which accurately reflects what a customer believes a paying parent should be paying, the customer can seek a Variation. Variations allow the CMS to look at some circumstances which are not covered by the basic maintenance calculation. A variation can be requested on grounds of diversion of income. This is when the paying parent may be able to control the amount of income they receive. This includes diverting income to another person or for another purpose (including excessive pension contributions).

When income used to calculate the child maintenance assessment is disputed outside of the normal business as usual process, this can be referred for investigation by the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU), whose function is ensuring financial correctness of Child Maintenance assessments. Cases involving complex income can also be investigated by the FIU. This specialist team can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given.

Where the FIU establishes that potential offences contrary to the Child Support Act 1991 have been committed, the case is submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service to make a decision regarding the viability of prosecution/conviction. The CMS is committed to prosecuting where it is in the public interest to do so, whilst balancing the welfare of all children involved in a maintenance assessment.

The FIU and HMRC are developing a new partnership to explore better intelligence sharing and joint working.

We are currently reviewing FIU work with a view to improving performance.

Furthermore, subject to securing primary legislation, we plan to remove Direct Pay and move to a single CMS service. This will enable the CMS to monitor all payments, respond more quickly to non-compliance, and better support victims and survivors of domestic abuse by removing the need for contact between parents and reducing the burden of reporting missed payments.

Where a paying parent changes jobs, The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses real-time information from HMRC where available, to quickly identify new employment and adjust maintenance calculations accordingly.

People who are self-employed are required to keep accurate records of their business income and expenses for tax purposes. HMRC can charge penalties for inaccurate reporting where it results in tax being unpaid.

Where the information available from HMRC does not give rise to a liability which accurately reflects what a customer believes a paying parent should be paying, the customer can seek a Variation. Variations allow the CMS to look at some circumstances which are not covered by the basic maintenance calculation. A variation can be requested on grounds of diversion of income. This is when the paying parent may be able to control the amount of income they receive. This includes diverting income to another person or for another purpose (including excessive pension contributions).

When income used to calculate the child maintenance assessment is disputed outside of the normal business as usual process, this can be referred for investigation by the Financial Investigation Unit (FIU), whose function is ensuring financial correctness of Child Maintenance assessments. Cases involving complex income can also be investigated by the FIU. This specialist team can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given.

Where the FIU establishes that potential offences contrary to the Child Support Act 1991 have been committed, the case is submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service to make a decision regarding the viability of prosecution/conviction. The CMS is committed to prosecuting where it is in the public interest to do so, whilst balancing the welfare of all children involved in a maintenance assessment.

The FIU and HMRC are developing a new partnership to explore better intelligence sharing and joint working.

We are currently reviewing FIU work with a view to improving performance.

Furthermore, subject to securing primary legislation, we plan to remove Direct Pay and move to a single CMS service. This will enable the CMS to monitor all payments, respond more quickly to non-compliance, and better support victims and survivors of domestic abuse by removing the need for contact between parents and reducing the burden of reporting missed payments.

The primary goal of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is to ensure that children receive the financial support they are entitled to. To achieve this, the CMS collaborates with HMRC and Benefit systems to accurately calculate maintenance payments. This collaboration helps prevent paying parents from misrepresenting their income. Parents can make a request to the CMS to have other forms of income not previously considered included in the maintenance calculation.

To tackle fraudulent reporting of earnings, if there is a suspicion of income misrepresentation, the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) will conduct a thorough investigation. Complex income and cases where a paying parent may be responsible for declaring their own income can also be investigated by the FIU. This specialist team can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given. When an investigation identifies evidence of criminal offences, the FIU will submit their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider prosecution on offences contrary to the Child Support Act 1991.

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) operates in line with the Department for Work and Pensions' (DWP) complaints service standard, which aims to respond to complaints within 15 working days or, where a case will take longer than 15 days to respond to, set a resolution plan with the customer where cases are complex and may take longer. A resolution plan is a clear outline of how we will address and resolve a complaint. It sets out what actions will be taken, who is responsible, and the expected timescales for completing these actions.

The Department recognises that complaint response times have not consistently met expected standards in recent months due to increased volumes and a rise in complex cases. Improving timeliness of responses remains a key operational priority.

To address this, the Department has taken urgent action to deploy additional resources to complaints and correspondence teams, prioritised the reduction of backlogs, strengthened performance monitoring and senior oversight, and improved case management processes to support faster and more consistent responses.

In circumstances where a customer has overpaid child maintenance, Section 41B of the Child Support Act 1991 provides the Secretary of State with discretion to repay all or part of the overpaid amount. This is a discretionary power rather than an entitlement, and its use is considered carefully in light of the individual circumstances of each case. As a general principle, overpayments are addressed, where possible and appropriate, by offsetting them against future child maintenance liabilities. Repayment under Section 41B would therefore generally be considered only in exceptional circumstances where adjustment against future liability is not possible or would not provide an appropriate means of resolving the overpayment.

The Department recognises on-going financial matters can cause uncertainty and potential financial pressure for families. The CMS therefore treats financial hardship seriously and has support mechanisms in place to assist vulnerable customers where urgent help is required.