Guidance

Child Maintenance Service statistics: background information and methodology

Updated 26 March 2024

Purpose of the statistics

This document provides an overview of the performance of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) with the most up-to-date statistics and breakdowns. The latest release of CMS statistics is published in the collection of Child Maintenance Service statistics.

This publication does not include information on the Child Support Agency (CSA). Statistics on the CSA are available from the CSA quarterly statistical summary and CSA case closure publications.

Context

Child maintenance is financial support, towards a child’s everyday living costs, that a parent without the main day-to-day care of the child, Paying Parent, provides to the other parent, Receiving Parent.

Separated parents can arrange child maintenance themselves. This is called a family-based arrangement and is a private way to agree child maintenance

The CMS, which replaced the CSA, is for when the parents cannot agree to a family-based arrangement.

Parents wishing to use the CMS must first use the Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance (GHACM) service. GHACM was introduced in November 2021 and replaced Child Maintenance Options.

When a parent makes an application to the CMS, they will be told how much child maintenance should be paid. Some parents will then arrange the payments between themselves: this service is known as Direct Pay.

If parents cannot arrange payments between themselves, or if the Paying Parent does not keep up with the payments, the Receiving Parent can ask the CMS to switch the case to the Collect and Pay service. This service collects and manages payments between the parents, including recovery of unpaid maintenance that built up under the Direct Pay service. This could involve the use of enforcement powers. To use the Collect and Pay service, paying parents are charged 20% of their child maintenance, and receiving parents 4%: this is intended to encourage parents to collaborate.

Time period covered

The CMS was launched in stages:

Stage 1 (10 December 2012) the service was opened to new applicants with at least 4 children.

Stage 2 (29 July 2013) new applications were open to parents with at least 2 children.

Stage 3 (25 November 2013) the service was opened to all applications.

The quarterly Child Maintenance Statistics provide information from stage 2 to June 2021. Prior to this, the numbers of applications were small and limited performance data was available.

The latest release of statistics contains information from the start of 2015 to the present day, for Great Britain.

Definitions and terminology

A list of the definitions and terminology used within these statistics.

Appeals

Parents who have made an appeal to the CMS or His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to review a decision made by the CMS.

Application fee

Applications to the CMS initially incur a £20 fee unless exempt.

Application fee exemptions

If the parent making the application to the CMS is under 19 years old or declares that they, or their child, have been the victim of domestic abuse, then they do not have to pay the application fee.

Applications

The total number of applications made to the CMS in a three-month period.

Arrangement

For the purpose of this publication, an arrangement is an agreement to provide financial support for a child’s everyday living costs.

Case closure

The process of ending the liability and closing all cases on the CSA. Parents were then encouraged to contact Child Maintenance Options to discuss what to do next.

Caseload

The number of child maintenance arrangements being managed by the CMS.

Change of circumstances

Parents can report a change to their circumstances. The CMS records this information and updates maintenance calculations where necessary.

Children covered

The number of children for whom the Paying Parent has a child maintenance arrangement.

Collect and Pay

The CMS collects and manages payments from the Paying Parent to the receiving parent. If required, the CMS will take enforcement actions.

Compliance

This measures how much maintenance has been successfully collected from the Paying Parent, compared to the amount of new maintenance arranged via the Collect and Pay service in that three-month period. Money due is calculated as the child maintenance that is due to be paid in each quarter. Meanwhile, money received is the amount of child maintenance that has been paid. Amounts of money due and money received do not include the fees paid to the CMS. Note that, if a parent is trying to settle arrears that have previously accumulated, they would need to pay more than the amount of new maintenance arranged during the quarter.

Money due is calculated as the child maintenance that is due be paid in each quarter. This does not include the fees due to the CMS. Meanwhile, money received is the amount of child maintenance that has been paid. Child maintenance that is collected on weekdays is usually sent to Receiving Parents on the subsequent Saturday. As there is some variance in the number of Saturdays in each month, this can have an impact on the money received, due to the timing of Child Maintenance payments being received from the Universal Credit system.

Direct Pay

The CMS calculates the amount of maintenance to be paid, and parents arrange the payments between themselves.

Domestic abuse

Any incident of controlling, coercive or threatening behaviour, violence or abuse between those aged 16 or over who are or have been intimate partners or family members, regardless of their gender or sexuality. This can encompass, but is not limited to, the following types of abuse: psychological; physical; sexual; financial; emotional.

Enforcement

When a Paying Parent using the Collect and Pay service does not pay their child maintenance the service can take action to recover money owed. The CMS can collect unpaid child maintenance in 4 different ways:

1. Deduction from earnings order or request – money is recovered from the Paying Parent’s earnings via their employer, who will be instructed on the amount to deduct.
2. Deduction from benefit – money is recovered from the Paying Parent’s benefits.
3. Deduction order – money is deducted directly from the Paying Parent’s bank or building society account.
4. Civil enforcement actions – a Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid maintenance. The courts can grant orders, which allow further action to be taken. These actions include:

• referral to Enforcement Agents
• registering a Paying Parent’s debt on the Register of Judgments, Orders and Fines
• using an order for sale to sell a Paying Parent’s property or assets
• stopping the Paying Parent getting or keeping a driving licence or passport
• sending the Paying Parent to prison

Intake

The number of new arrangements joining the CMS.

Mandatory reconsiderations

Where a parent has asked the CMS to reconsider a decision on how much child maintenance should be paid.

Money due

The amount of child maintenance that is due to be paid. This is calculated by the CMS and should be paid in the quarter. This does not include the fees due to the CMS.

Money paid

The amount of child maintenance paid. This does not include any fees paid to the CMS.

Paying parent

The parent who does not have main day-to-day care of the child and pays child maintenance.

Receiving parent

The parent with main day-to-day care of the child and who receives child maintenance.

Sanctions

These are enforcement actions such as sending Paying Parents to prison, disqualifying them from driving or from holding a passport. These sanctions are only used when every other method of recovering unpaid child maintenance has been tried. The CMS only pursues these sanctions when they believe the Paying Parent can pay but they are refusing to do so.

Shared care

Where a Paying Parent’s child stays overnight with them. In these cases, the CMS makes a deduction to the weekly child maintenance amount based on the average number of ‘shared care’ nights a week.

Unpaid maintenance

The amount of child maintenance that the Paying Parent has not paid.

Users and uses

The main users of the statistics in this document are:

• the public

• external interest groups

• Parliament

• ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions

• ministers and officials in other government departments

• academics

• the media and external commentators

These statistics are used for a number of purposes:

• monitoring and reporting of the performance of the CMS in Great Britain
• internal analysis to measure and improve the performance of the CMS
• informing ministerial briefings and press releases
• answering Parliamentary Questions and Freedom of Information requests
• policy evaluation to help external users gauge the performance of the CMS
• informing discussions and meetings with external stakeholders and MPs
• social research and academic studies of the impact of social policy

Data quality and sources

Data sources

The statistics in the publication come from different data sources. Some of these are from administrative data, management information and some from clerical data. We have ensured that all our tables are based on the most accurate and relevant data available.

Administrative data

This is generated and stored on the CMS computer systems. Data on all parents using the service is collected and the quality of this information is good.

Management information

This is aggregate information and statistics collected and used by the CMS to manage the business, monitor performance and inform policies. It is usually based on administrative data but can also come from survey data. The terms administrative data and management information are sometimes used interchangeably. The quality of this information is good.

Clerical data

This is gathered manually and usually stored in spreadsheets. As the data is entered manually it goes through multiple checks to ensure its accuracy. The quality of this information is reasonable.

We believe all our data sources meet publishable standards.

The following table sets out the source(s) for each table.

Table	Measure	Source
1	Applications to the Child Maintenance Service	Management Information
2	Application fee exemptions	Management Information
3	Intake	Management Information
4	Service Type changes	Administrative Data
5	Money Due and Paid each Quarter	Management Information
6	How much Child Maintenance the Child Maintenance Service has arranged	Management Information
7.1	Enforcement Actions	Administrative and Clerical data
7.2	Enforcement Actions – Detail on Sanctions	Clerical data
8	Financial Investigations Unit – Actions	Management Information
9	Change of Circumstances	Administrative Data
10	Mandatory Reconsiderations	Management Information
11	Appeals	Management Information
12	Complaints	Management Information
13	Telephony	Management Information
Stat-Xplore	Children, Arrangements and Paying Parents	Administrative Data

Arrangements, paying parents, and children: criteria for inclusion in the statistics

Which arrangements are included in these statistics?

In general, counts of arrangements (including applications) include all open child maintenance arrangements for which some maintenance has been arranged under the CMS. For an arrangement to be open, either:

• the Paying Parent has an ongoing liability to pay child maintenance, even if the amount is calculated as zero (as a result of the Paying Parent’s circumstances), or
• there are outstanding child maintenance arrears owed by the Paying Parent

Some arrangements which were previously managed by the CSA have been transferred onto the CMS. These arrangements are included in counts if, and only if, ongoing maintenance has been arranged by the CMS since the case was transferred.

Counts of arrangements (and applications) do not include those for which arrears that were incurred under the CSA have been transferred to the CMS, but no ongoing maintenance has become due under the CMS. However, statistics relating to other processes (for example, enforcement actions, telephony) may, unless otherwise indicated, include processes or actions relating to such arrangements.

Which children are included in these statistics?

Counts of children included in these statistics include all children who are associated with an open arrangement (as defined above), and are below 20 years of age.

This will include a small number of individuals, between 16 and 19 years of age, who are no longer considered a qualifying child for the purpose of calculating ongoing maintenance, for cases in which the relevant arrangement is still open (because there are arrears or other qualifying children).

This is because individuals in this age bracket only qualify for child maintenance if:

• they are in full-time non-advanced education, or
• the receiving parent is still entitled to Child Benefit in respect of that child

At present, the data available to statisticians does not allow us to distinguish whether children between 16 and 19 years of age meet these criteria.

Which paying parents are included in these statistics?

The counts of Paying Parents available via the Stat-Xplore tool include all unique Paying Parents associated with arrangements meeting the criteria defined above.

Use of estimates in December 2018

During December 2018, there was a problem with data feeds which affected some of the figures reported for December 2018. Data were corrected as far as possible. However, the following tables / metrics were still significantly affected, and were replaced with estimated values, which were calculated as outlined below.

Money due and paid during the quarter ending December 2018 (Table 5)

Estimates were calculated by finding the average (mean) of a) the value arranged / paid for the quarter ending November 2018, and b) the value arranged / paid for the quarter ending January 2019. (These figures were not affected by the data problem.) This was carried out independently for the following metrics:

• amount of Child Maintenance due through the Direct Pay service

• amount of Child Maintenance due through the Collect and Pay service

• amount of Child Maintenance paid through the Collect and Pay service

Values collected via deduction from earnings orders and requests (Table 7.1)

For the total money collected from Paying Parents via deduction from earnings orders or requests estimates were calculated by finding the average (mean) of:

a) the value collected during the quarter ending November 2018, and

b) the value collected during the quarter ending January 2019 (these figures were not affected by the data problem)

Methodological revisions and publication changes

This section sets out methodological revisions and changes to the publication which have resulted in earlier published statistics being systematically revised, or deemed inaccurate. Details of methodological changes prior to the September 2019 publication (data to June 2019), are outlined in the relevant release documents.

To note: The order of tables and the numbering scheme has changed over time, the table number referenced is correct to the time the changes were made. Table titles have been included to avoid ambiguity.

September 2019 publication (data to June 2019)

1. Table 10 (Children covered by the CMS) and the Regional Tables: There have been corrections to the methodology used to allocate arrangements (and therefore children) to service types. Figures for previous quarters were revised in this publication. The changes correct the following errors:

• previously, if a Paying Parent made any payments via the Collect and Pay service during a calendar quarter, all arrangements associated with that parent would have been recorded under ‘Collect and Pay - Paying’, even if they were using Direct Pay at the end of the quarter (due to switching services or having multiple arrangements)
• the small number of arrangements not yet assigned to a service type were previously recorded as being covered by the Collect and Pay service

Approximately 2% of children covered in March 2019 were miscategorised in the statistics as a result of these errors. This rises to approximately 4% for figures relating to earlier times, due to the relatively greater number of arrangements not assigned to service types.

2. Table 4 (The Number of Paying Parents and their Child Maintenance Arrangement) and Table 8 (Money Due and Paid each Quarter): include counts of unique Paying Parents on the CMS. This is calculated by counting the number of unique Paying Parent National Insurance Numbers associated with arrangements. Previously, these were sourced from datasets that were available at the relevant time (e.g. data held at the end of December 2017 were used to give the count for December 2017). The methodology has now changed: the most recent data is now used to identify the Paying Parent associated with each arrangement. This may include subsequent updates or revisions (e.g. where the National Insurance Number of the Paying Parent was unknown at the time of reporting but has since been identified). Although there is minimal change to figures from September 2017, figures prior to this quarter have been revised upwards by approximately 1.0%, with the exception of June 2017, which saw an upwards revision of 2.4%.

3. Table 12 (Enforcement Actions): counts of Civil Enforcement Actions (Liability Orders, Enforcement Agents, Sanctions, Other Civil Enforcement Actions) ‘in process’, previously included any action ongoing during the last month of the quarter. This now only includes actions that were ongoing at the end of the quarter.

4. Table 12 (Enforcement Actions): counts of liability orders applied for, granted, and withdrawn/dismissed, provided now include liability orders relating to arrangements consisting solely of arrears accrued under the CSA. This is consistent with data provided elsewhere in Table 12.

5. Table 12 (Enforcement Actions): previously included statistics on the total amount of maintenance collected from parents undergoing a Civil Enforcement Actions or with a Deduction from Earnings Order / Request applied. Following a review of this table, these figures are no longer considered fit for purpose due to the following methodological issues which cannot easily be fixed:

• money collected towards the payment of arrears accrued under the CSA was not included, as is the case with other figures in the table
• the reported figure counted any money collected during the quarter, from Paying Parents who had an ongoing enforcement action or Deduction from Earnings Order and Request at the end of the quarter. This means that some payments may have been inappropriately included or excluded

6. Table 12 (Enforcement Actions): the information source used to produce Deduction from Earning Order / Request statistics in Table 12 has been changed, to ensure figures are aligned with internal reports. Changes to published figures are minimal: zero or one rounding unit (100).

December 2019 publication (data to September 2019)

1. The release document: now published in a webpage (HTML) format, rather than as a PDF. There are number of benefits to this: the new format is intended to be more accessible, and easier to read on portable devices.

2. Table 4 (The Number of Paying Parents and their Child Maintenance Arrangement), Table 5 (Service Type Changes), Table 6 (Children covered by the CMS) and Table 8 (How much Child Maintenance were Paying Parents due to pay?): previously reported counts of Paying Parents, children, and arrangements in these tables have undergone small revisions. This is because one of our data sources did not previously contain full information relating to the specific subset of cases where Child Maintenance arrangements were applied for and created under the Northern Ireland CMS but have subsequently moved to the service in Great Britain. This has now been corrected. The impact of this change varies depending on the time period being reported, but impacts no more than 0.2% of the caseload at any time.

3. Table 1 (Applications to the CMS): now only reports on the status of applications made in the last 12 months. This is because the source information is not updated beyond this timeframe.

4. All National Tables: The order of tables and the numbering scheme has changed so that tables relating to the same theme are now grouped together.

March 2020 publication (data to December 2019)

1. Table 6 (Children covered by the CMS) and the Regional Tables: there have been corrections relating to counts of children covered. This affects figures for previous quarters and these have been revised in this publication. The changes correct the following:

• previously, a small number of children who had duplicated records in the source dataset were being counted multiple times. This has been corrected to only count records once, leading to a 1% reduction in counts of children covered by the CMS

2. Table 7 (Shared Care): there have been corrections relating to Shared Care counts, affecting figures reported for previous quarters. These have been revised in this publication. The changes correct the following:

• previously, the methodology did not include systematic rules to handle cases in which children covered by the same CMS arrangement had differing levels of shared care. This has now been corrected to systematically report the highest level of Shared Care used in an arrangement. This has resulted in:

  • the number of arrangements using Shared Care being revised upwards by approximatively 2%
  • the number of arrangements in which at least one child spends “equal nights with both parents” is more affected, and has been revised upwards by approximately 10%

3. Table 12.1 (Enforcements Actions): the introduction of a new table relating to sanctions (see below) has resulted in this table has been renumbered from Table 12 to Table 12.1.

4. Table 12.2 (Enforcement Actions – Detail on Sanctions): this new table provides more detail relating to passport confiscations, disqualifications from driving and prison sentences for England and Wales and Scotland respectively. The table has been added in response to user demand.

When considering this data, the user should be aware of the following:

• the table has been split into two halves, one covering England and Wales, and one covering Scotland separately. This is to reflect the differing legal systems in the two regions (for further details refer to table footnotes)

• the table only includes data relating to cases heard in open court. Closed court cases are not included to protect the disclosure risk to individuals for these sensitive cases

• table 12.2 only includes cases were an application was made to court to apply a sanction. These will be fewer than the number of ‘Sanctions Initiated’ given in Table 12.1, which includes cases where:

  • a. Compliance was achieved following a warning letter being issued to the Paying Parent
  • b. The CMS determined that the Paying Parent did not have the means to pay their liabilities
  • c. The CMS decided not to apply to court due to other specific circumstances of the case

• outcomes in England and Wales are reported based on the time that the result was recorded in centrally-held management information. This is usually within a few days of an order being made, although longer delays occasionally occur

• in a small number of cases in England and Wales incomplete record keeping has meant that the outcome of a case has not been recorded. These cases have been denoted as ‘Not recorded’. This clerical information has not previously been used for statistical purposes so efforts to improve and review the data capture each quarter are underway. We will ensure that information remains at the standard required of Official Statistics

• sanctions may be suspended (or additionally ‘Sisted’ or ‘Continued’ in Scotland). Essentially, this means a Paying Parent agrees to pay what is owed and a plan is put in place to do so. If the Paying Parent falters, then a sentence can be subsequently enforced and such instances will appear as additional outcomes in this table

June 2020 publication (data to March 2020)

1. Data at arrangement level has transferred to the Department for Work and Pension’s Stat-Xplore tool.

Stat-Xplore enables users to create customised statistical tables relating to arrangements on the CMS. New data on age and gender of Paying Parents, age of Receiving Parents and geographical breakdowns as low as census output areas have been released with users in mind.

Figures within Stat-Xplore are unrounded. However, a technique called perturbation has been used to randomly adjust cell values. Small random errors are introduced to cells although the information value of the table as a whole is not impaired. Random adjustment of the data is considered to be the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable data. Read more information on this technique.

In comparison, figures within the National Tables and the Release are rounded. Where the National Tables and the Release refer to Stat-Xplore numbers the usual rounding convention has been applied for consistency. This means it is possible that in a small number of arrangement figures will differ by 1 rounding unit (100) when perturbation and rounding is applied together.

Resultant changes to Excel tables from Stat-Xplore:

• redundant tables: The number of Paying Parents and their Child Maintenance Arrangements (formerly Table 4) has been removed from the National Tables. Arrangements data is now available on Stat-Xplore. Information on the number of Paying Parents is available in Table 7 (“How much Child Maintenance were Paying Parents due to pay?”)

• Table References: table numbers have changed, as a result of bullet 1

• Shared Care (Table 6, formerly Table 7): arrangements broken down by shared care status is now available through Stat-Xplore. This part of the National Tables has been removed. The breakdown of children by shared care status still remains. There are future plans to move this onto Stat-Xplore

• Regional Tables: arrangements by region is now available through Stat-Xplore, and at a geographical breakdown as low as census output areas. The breakdown of children covered by Local Authority of the Paying Parent still remains, as part of the Regional Tables. There are future plans to move this onto StatXplore

• Geography: address information on Stat-Xplore and the Regional Tables has changed to a more robust data source. This has resulted in a reduction in the number of missing address records

2. Table 11.2: Enforcement Actions – Detail on Sanctions: Sanction applications in Scotland are listed separately, as the legal system is significantly different to that in England and Wales. Cases in Scotland may be sisted or continued following a Paying Parent’s agreement to pay Child Maintenance arrears. In practice, this means that the case is postponed to a later date or temporarily paused while the Paying Parent complies with such an agreement. The CMS may then ask for the case to be recalled and dismissed if the Paring Parent complies with the agreement, or referred back for a default hearing if not. The statistics published during March 2020 showed the number of continued and sisted cases and included such events as ‘outcomes’ in the total. This data has been withdrawn, as meaningful comparisons across time cannot be made, as the underlying report only includes cases that remained continued / sisted (i.e. had not been dismissed or resulted in a sanction being imposed) at the point of reporting.

3. Table 14: Mandatory Reconsiderations: The timeliness metric used in this table has changed. It now shows the volume of Mandatory Reconsiderations cleared within 28 days of receipt as a percentage of the volume of all Mandatory Reconsiderations cleared within the quarter. In previous publications, we reported the volume of Mandatory Reconsiderations cleared within 28 days of receipt as a percentage of the volume of all Mandatory Reconsiderations received within the quarter. The new metric is thought to be more robust, because the numerator and denominator of the calculation include consistent cases from the same time period, and do not include cancelled cases. For transparency, the old metric has been included in the table for one final time; it will be removed in the September 2020 publication.

September 2020 publication (data to June 2020)

1. This quarter was the first period the data relating to the CMS was noticeably affected by the COVID-19 outbreak and the resultant changes to the Department’s operational priorities. The lockdown began on the 23 March 2020, in the UK.

Table 8: Paying Parents Compliance: 74% of parents due to pay child maintenance through the Collect and Pay service paid some maintenance in the quarter ending June 2020. This is an increase from 68% in the quarter ending March 2020 but should be viewed with caution. The compliance rate has been inflated this quarter as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 10 April and 9 May 2020, all deductions from Universal Credit (UC) were temporarily paused and the Government paid all child maintenance liabilities for parents paying via deductions from UC. This resulted in a higher than usual rate of compliance for this group. In addition, there has been an increased movement of people onto benefits. Therefore, more parents are paying via Deduction from Benefits; these individuals are now more likely contribute some maintenance, as deductions are made automatically.

This means that the compliance rate for this quarter is not directly comparable to previous quarters. In order to show the movement in compliance rates for groups not affected by these issues, we have temporarily included the compliance rate excluding Deduction from Benefits cases within our data. The Deduction from Benefit cases typically account for 21% to 24% of all Paying Parents, for June 2020 this has increased to 39% due to the COVID-19 outbreak.

2. Table 15: Appeals: In response to the COVID-19 outbreak, outstanding work and resources needed to be re-prioritised, resulting in Appeals data not being available for the quarter June 2020.

3. Table 5: Children covered by the CMS: Please note that we have recently noted that we may be overestimating the count of children by up to 1%. We are currently investigating this.

December 2020 publication (data to September 2020)

1. As stated in the previous publication, for the quarter ending June 2020 the compliance rate was inflated as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Between 10 April and 9 May 2020, all deductions from Universal Credit (UC) were temporarily paused and the government paid all child maintenance liabilities for parents paying via deductions from UC. This resulted in a higher than usual rate of compliance for this group. In order to show the movement in compliance rates for groups not affected by these issues, we temporarily included the compliance rate excluding Deduction from Benefits cases within our data for the June 2020 quarter. This measure has now been removed from the publication as payments from the government ceased.

2. The counts of children on the CMS has been retrospectively updated to reflect an improved methodology for calculating Qualifying Children. Previous statistics were over-counting the number of children by up to 1%.

This is because approximately 1% of qualifying children were being counted more than once due to being associated with multiple arrangements. This can occur legitimately (in certain unusual scenarios), or result from recording errors. Selection rules have been applied so the child appears only once in the data set, associated with the correct (or most relevant) arrangement:

• when a child appears on arrangements with an ongoing liability, and also on arrangements with no ongoing liability, we remove the latter records; and then
• when a child appears on multiple arrangements with different open dates, we remove the older arrangements; and then
• in cases for which the above 2 rules are not sufficient to select an arrangement, the relevant arrangement is chosen according to the position in the dataset (that is, effectively at random). This is quite rare, but can occur if a child’s guardian simultaneously opens an arrangement with both biological parents

3. Data at child-level has transferred to DWP’s Stat-Xplore tool.

Stat-Xplore enables users to create customised statistical tables relating to arrangements on - and children covered by – the CMS. New data on age and gender of Paying Parents, age of Receiving Parents, age of child and geographical breakdowns as low as census output areas for each child covered by the CMS have been released with users in mind.

Figures within Stat-Xplore are unrounded. However, a technique called perturbation has been used to randomly adjust cell values. Small random errors are introduced to cells although the information value of the table as a whole is not impaired. Random adjustment of the data is considered to be the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable data. Read more information on this technique.

In comparison, figures within the National Tables and the Release are rounded. Where the National Tables and the Release refer to Stat-Xplore numbers the usual rounding convention has been applied for consistency. This means it is possible that in a small number of arrangement figures will differ by 1 rounding unit (100) when perturbation and rounding is applied together.

Resultant changes to Excel tables from Stat-Xplore:

• Redundant National Tables: children covered by the CMS (formerly Table 5) and Shared Care (formerly Table 6) have been removed from the National Tables. Child-level data is now available on Stat-Xplore
• Redundant Regional Tables: arrangements on, and children covered by the CMS by region is now available through Stat-Xplore, and at a geographical breakdown as low as census output areas. Therefore, we will no longer be publishing our usual Regional Tables
• Table References: table numbers have changed, as a result of bullet 1 (see the contents page in the ODS files for further details)

March 2021 publication (data to December 2020)

1. Data at Paying Parent-level has transferred to the Stat-Xplore tool.

Stat-Xplore enables users to create customised statistical tables relating to arrangements on – and children covered by – the CMS. New data on Paying Parents using the CMS has been released with users in mind, including:

• Age
• Gender
• Geography
• Compliance
• Maintenance due
• Method of Payment
• Number of Arrangements
• Number of Children Covered
• Universal Credit Status

Figures within Stat-Xplore are unrounded. However, a technique called perturbation has been used to randomly adjust cell values. Small random errors are introduced to cells although the information value of the table as a whole is not impaired. Random adjustment of the data is considered to be the most satisfactory technique for avoiding the release of identifiable data. Read more information on this technique.

In comparison, figures within the National Tables and the Release are rounded. Where the National Tables and the Release refer to Stat-Xplore numbers the usual rounding convention has been applied for consistency. This means it is possible that in a small number of arrangement figures will differ by 1 rounding unit (100) when perturbation and rounding is applied together.

Resultant changes to Excel tables from Stat-Xplore:

• Redundant National Tables: How much Child Maintenance were Paying Parents due to pay? (formerly Table 5) and Paying Parents Compliance (formerly Table 6) have been removed from the National Tables. Paying Parent-level data is now available on Stat-Xplore
• Table References: table numbers have changed, as a result of bullet 1 (see contents page in the ODS files for further details)

2. A minor issue has been found in the source data for December 2020. We estimate that around 1,800 (0.3%) arrangements have been omitted from this quarter’s data. This will have a knock on impact on counts of parents and children. This is being investigated and therefore these figures may be revised upwards slightly in the next publication.

June 2021 publication (data to March 2021)

1. A minor issue which was identified in the source data for December 2020 has now been corrected. Approximately 1,800 arrangements (0.3%) were erroneously omitted from the data. This also affected counts of parents and children. Caseload figures for December 2020 have therefore been revised upwards since the March 2021 publication.

2. Some changes have been made to National Table 98 (“Change of Circumstances”):

• Firstly, the information is now directly calculated from administrative data rather than internal management information. This change of source has resulted in some revisions to previously published figures for the number of requests received and cleared in each quarter. Most figures have changed by no more than 0.1%, with only one figure (requests cleared in the quarter ending September 2017) being revised more significantly, by 0.9%

• Secondly, the calculation of timeliness metrics has been adjusted to match their stated definition. These metrics were described as being the percentage of requests received in each quarter that were cleared within 28 calendar days. However, from April 2017 onwards, we actually calculated the number of requests cleared during each quarter within 28 days of the date they were received, expressed as a percentage of the total number of requests received in that quarter. We have now revised the calculation so as align with the stated definition. As a result, some of these figures have changed by 1 or 2 percentage points

September 2021 publication (data to June 2021)

1. The National Tables that accompany the publication have been significantly re-formatted in order to conform to the latest Government Statistical Service guidelines on releasing statistics in spreadsheets. The aim of this guidance is to improve the usability, accessibility and machine readability of statistical spreadsheets.

2. An error was identified within the production code for the ‘CMS Arrangements’ and ‘CMS Children’ tables on Stat-Xplore. This affected the geography (Paying Parent’s address) variable used in Stat-Xplore. Some records that should have been labelled as ‘Abroad’ had been labelled as “Unknown” and vice versa:

• for the ‘CMS Arrangements’ Stat-Xplore table, the problem usually affected around 0.25% of the total reported caseload for each quarter, but this varied over time and was occasionally as high 0.65%. Most commonly, arrangements where the Paying Parent’s address was not known were reported as the Paying Parent being resident abroad. The full back series has now been revised to correct the issue

• for the ‘CMS Children’ Stat-Xplore table, the number of records impacted is small (less than 200 children per quarter) except for the quarter ending December 2016, which is more significantly affected due to the greater proportion of missing data in this quarter. The error has now been resolved, so that the latest quarter (ending June 2021) and the previously reported quarter (ending March 2021) are now unaffected. The full back-series will be revised in a future publication. In the meantime, users wishing to obtain a historical view of the number of Paying Parents with an overseas address should query the ‘CMS Arrangements’ Stat-Xplore table, which has now been corrected as described above, or the ‘CMS Paying Parents’ Stat-Xplore table, which is completely unaffected by this problem

December 2021 publication (data to September 2021)

The final publication of the CSA Quarterly Summary Statistics was published on the 27 October 2021. Table 8.1 and 8.2 (‘Collections and write-off on CSA arrears only case groups’ and ‘Methods of debt collection for CSA arrears only case groups’ respectively) from this publication have transferred to be published alongside the CMS Quarterly Statistics.

June 2023 publication (data to March 2023)

The underlying data sets used in the charts and national tables (table 7.2 ‘Enforcement Actions- Details on Sanctions, Great Britain, July 2019 to March 2023’ and table 8 ‘Financial Investigations Unit Actions, Great Britain, April 2017 to March 2023’) have been altered since the last publication (December 2022). This is due to the identification of some minor rounding errors in these data sets. These errors have now been corrected and this publication will have the corrected charts and use the updated data

Status of the statistics

Experimental statistics

The statistics have been developed using the guidelines set out by the UK Statistics Authority and are classed as official statistics. Official statistics have not been assessed as compliant by the Office for Statistics Regulation. The Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 has defined ‘Official Statistics’ as any statistical outputs that have been produced by the UK Statistics Authority’s executive office (the Office for National Statistics), by central Government departments and agencies, by the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and by other Crown bodies.

The statistics used in this publication are compliant with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics. This ensures that producers and users of statistics can use the principles and practices outlined in this code to produce statistics of high quality, trustworthiness and of public value.

Feedback

We welcome feedback

DWP would like to hear your views on our statistical publications. If you use any of our statistics publications, we would be interested in hearing what you use them for and how well they meet your requirements. Please email DWP at: cm.analysis.research@dwp.gov.uk

Useful links

Find more information relating to arrangements on the CMS, available via the Department for Work and Pensions StatXplore tool.

Statistics are available on the estimated number of separated families in Great Britain, and their child maintenance arrangements.

For historical information and statistics on Child Maintenance Options and family-based arrangements please see the quarterly survey results of parents who speak to Child Maintenance Options. These statistics go up to July 2019, as Child Maintenance Options was replaced by GHACM in November 2021.

Read further information and statistics on the performance and closure of the Child Support Agency.

ISBN: 978-1-78659-554-6