Research and analysis

Child Maintenance Service: data insights

Published 23 June 2025

Management information ad hoc analyses

This publication is classified as management information ad hoc analysis. These documents are published in the interests of transparency and are not part of our regular Official and National Statistics publications.

Policy background

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is responsible for the child maintenance system in Great Britain. It funds information and support for separating parents and runs the statutory child maintenance schemes, currently operated through the Child Maintenance Service (CMS).

What you need to know

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). The Get help arranging child maintenance service gives separated parents information about the different options available to make a child maintenance arrangement.

Separated parents can arrange child maintenance themselves. This is called a family-based arrangement and is a private way to agree child maintenance. Family-based arrangements are not covered by this release.

The CMS offers two levels of service:

• Direct Pay – the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance to be paid, and parents arrange payments between themselves

• Collect and Pay – the CMS will collect and manage payments between the parents, this is used when parents cannot arrange payments between themselves or if the Paying Parent does not keep up with payments.

• Parents can manage their child maintenance case using the My Child Maintenance Case service or contact the CMS using the telephone

Purpose of the release

This analysis is published for the sake of transparency and accountability.

The House of Lords Public Services committee may use these numbers in their publications, so our data is publicly available for transparency.

Statement of compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics

The Code of Practice for Statistics (the Code) is built around 3 main concepts, or pillars:

• trustworthiness

• quality

• value

The following explains how we have applied the pillars of the Code in a proportionate way.

Trustworthiness – is about having confidence in the people and organisations that publish statistics

DWP analysts adhere to a professional competency framework and Civil Service core values of integrity, honesty, objectivity, and impartiality. The management information in this report is sourced from the Child Maintenance Service’s systems. Analysts have produced the statistics and conducted rigorous quality assurance in line with the standards typically applied to ad hoc releases.

The expert lead analyst has reviewed the analysis, and the Department’s Head of Profession for Statistics was consulted on the production and publication process. The timing of the publication was pre-announced.

Care has been taken to ensure that only those who needed to see the analysis prior to publication had access to it.

The methodology, data sources, and approach taken are detailed in this report alongside the findings.

Quality – is about using data and methods that produce assured statistics

Professional analysts at DWP used the latest data and their expertise to produce the analysis and MI in this report. The data has also been rigorously quality-assured by other DWP analysts.

Value – is about publishing statistics that support society’s needs for information

The publication of this release ensures that the information is equally available to all users, providing transparency. This research offers important new evidence for Ministers, policy makers, and external stakeholders.

Contact us

For queries about the content of this document, email cm.analysis.research@dwp.gov.uk.