Official Statistics

Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to December 2022 (experimental)

Published 28 March 2023

Applies to England, Scotland and Wales

The latest release of these statistics can be found in the collection of Child Maintenance Service statistics.

This is a release of statistics on the Child Maintenance Service for Great Britain between January 2015 and December 2022. The release includes minor revisions to previously published statistics.

The next release is planned for 27 June 2023.

1. Introduction

The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) was introduced in December 2012 as part of the Government’s Child Maintenance reforms. It replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) and is for separated parents who cannot arrange child maintenance between themselves. The CMS offers two levels of service:

• “Direct Pay” is where the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance to be paid, and parents arrange payments between themselves
• “Collect & Pay” is used when parents cannot arrange payments between themselves, or if the Paying Parent does not keep up with payments. The CMS will collect and manage payments between the parents

The CMS has a range of enforcement actions it can use if the Paying Parent refuses to pay.

2. Main stories

Applications to the Child Maintenance Service

Since the beginning of the year 2022, there has been an increase of 52% in new applications to the Child Maintenance Service from 79,000 in the year to December 2021 to 119,700 in the year to December 2022.

Children covered by Child Maintenance Service arrangements, December 2020 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service Children data, available on StatXplore

There are 885,800 children covered by CMS arrangements:

• 562,600 children covered through Direct Pay arrangements
• 308,300 children covered through the Collect & Pay Service
• 15,000 children not yet assigned to a service

The number of children covered by CMS arrangements increased by 13,800 between September 2022 and December 2022.

Compliance rate of Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service, quarters ending December 2021 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service Paying Parent data, available on StatXplore

In the quarter ending December 2022, of 168,000 Paying Parents due to pay via the Collect & Pay service:

• 58,400 (35%) paid no maintenance
• 109,700 (65%) paid some maintenance, of which:
  • 35,300 (21%) paid up to 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter (further breakdowns of this group are available on Stat-Xplore)
  • 74,400 (44%) paid over 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter

The percentage of parents paying something towards their maintenance has increased by 1 percentage point to 65%, since the last quarter.

Since the quarter ending December 2021, there has been 1 percentage point decrease in the percentage of parents paying over 90% of their maintenance due for the quarter, falling from 45% to 44%.

3. 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 provides to the other parent.

Separated parents can arrange child maintenance themselves. This is called a ‘family-based arrangement’ and is a private way to sort out child maintenance. Parents arrange everything themselves and no-one else has to be involved.

The CMS replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA). It is for parents who cannot agree to a family-based arrangement.

Before you can apply to the Child Maintenance Service, you must use the Get Help Arranging Maintenance (GHACM) service. GHACM is a free service that provides impartial information and support to help separated parents make decisions about their child maintenance arrangements.

Definitions

Receiving Parent

The Receiving Parent has the main day-to-day care of the children and receives the child maintenance.

Paying Parent

The Paying Parent does not have the main day-to-day care of the children and pays child maintenance.

Children covered

Children covered is the number of children for whom the Paying Parent has a child maintenance arrangement.

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 & Pay service in that three-month period. 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.

See the Background Information document for more details.

4. Applications to the Child Maintenance Service

Parents who want to apply to the CMS must pay a £20 application fee. Parents do not have to pay this if they:

• have been a victim of domestic abuse
• declare their child has been the victim of abuse
• are under 19 years of age

Some applications to the CMS are from parents who previously had an arrangement with the Child Support Agency. All Child Support Agency cases with an ongoing liability were closed by December 2018. Parents were then encouraged to make a new family-based arrangement or an arrangement through the CMS. The CMS may still receive applications from parents who previously used the CSA, as they may have had a family-based arrangement in the interim.

Applications to the Child Maintenance Service, quarters ending December 2020 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2022, National Tables, table 3

Since the beginning of the year 2022, there has been an increase of 52% in new applications to the Child Maintenance Service from 79,000 in the year to December 2021 to 119,700 in the year to December 2022. The increase in applications should be seen in the context of:

• the first increase observed in the quarter to March 2022 when applications increased by 38% compared to December 2021
• new applications continued to increase for the next two quarters, with 32,000 applications made in the quarter to June 2022 and 33,600 applications made in the quarter to September 2022
• a 19% decrease in applications in the quarter to December 2022, falling to 27,200. Applications in the last quarter of the year are typically reduced compared to the previous quarter

Of the 27,200 new applications to the CMS in the quarter ending December 2022, 55% were exempt from paying the £20 application fee. This was mainly due to applicants who had previously experienced domestic abuse.

At the end of December 2022, the CMS was managing 641,100 arrangements for 588,900 Paying Parents. There has been a 11% increase in the number of arrangements since the end of December 2021.

See tables 1-3 of the national tables for more information on applications.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on arrangements and paying parents.

5. Composition of cases on the Child Maintenance Service

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. The CMS simply provides the calculation and no further use of the service is required. Direct Pay can be chosen by either parent with the other’s agreement. Neither parent pays collection fees under Direct Pay.

Parents are issued a text message 3 months after they set up a Direct Pay arrangement, and at each annual review, to check that the arrangement is still meeting their requirements.

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 & Pay service.

Under the Collect & Pay service, the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance due (including the recovery of unpaid maintenance that has built up under the Direct Pay service), collects maintenance from the Paying Parent, and pays it to the Receiving Parent.

There are ongoing collection charges for use of the Collect & Pay service, payable by both:

• the Paying Parent (20% charged on top of the maintenance amount)
• the Receiving Parent (4% taken out of the maintenance amount)

Non-compliance under the Collect & Pay service can lead to the use of enforcement powers.

Flow of arrangements on the Child Maintenance Service, quarter ending December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2022, National Tables, table 4

Data on the flow of arrangements around the CMS in the quarter ending December 2022 shows:

• of those new applicants who have been assigned, most new applicants start on Direct Pay: 14,600 new applicants joined Direct Pay during the quarter
• 62% of all CMS arrangements use Direct Pay, with 37% using Collect & Pay
• more parents moved from Direct Pay to Collect & Pay than the other way around: 7,700 parents switched to Collect & Pay during the quarter
• the number of arrangements overall increased by 11,400 during the quarter
• the number of arrangements not yet assigned to a service has decreased from 14,100 to 11,300
• the proportion of arrangements that are not yet assigned to a service type accounts for 2% of all arrangements. This has remained the same since the last quarter.

See table 4 of the national tables for more information.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on arrangements.

6. Children covered by the Child Maintenance Service

Children covered by the Child Maintenance Service, quarters ending December 2020 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service Children data, available on StatXplore.

At the end of December 2022:

• 562,600 children were covered by 395,100 Direct Pay arrangements
• 308,300 children were covered by 234,600 Collect & Pay arrangements
• 167,500 of these children were covered by 118,500 Collect & Pay arrangements where the Paying Parent paid some maintenance during the quarter
• 140,800 of these children were covered by 116,100 Collect & Pay arrangements where no maintenance was paid during the quarter

The number of children covered by CMS arrangements has increased steadily over the last 2 years.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on children.

7. Paying Parents and the Collect and Pay service

This section defines compliance as any money paid towards Child Maintenance due on a Paying Parent’s case. It does include analysis into the reasons why a Paying Parent may not pay.

This includes Paying Parents transferred from the Direct Pay service because they have not kept up with payments.

Compliance rate of Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay Service, quarters ending December 2020 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service Paying Parents data, available on StatXplore.

In the quarter ending December 2022, of 168,000 Paying Parents due to pay via the Collect & Pay service:

• 58,400 (35%) paid no maintenance
• 109,700 (65%) paid some maintenance, of which:
  • 35,300 (21%) paid up to 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter (further breakdowns of this group are available on Stat-Xplore)
  • 74,400 (44%) paid over 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter

Since the quarter ending December 2021, there has been 1 percentage point decrease in the percentage of parents paying over 90% of their maintenance due for the quarter, falling from 45% to 44%.

Parents paying over 90% are grouped together because even if a Paying Parent is fully complying with an arrangement, their compliance rate may not be exactly 100%. This is due to differences between how liability accumulates on the CMS ‘liability schedule’ (used to calculate the amount due) and how collections are scheduled in practice. This group also includes Paying Parents who have paid more than 100% of their liability for the quarter, to pay off arrears that they have previously accumulated.

The percentage of parents paying something towards their maintenance has increased by 1 percentage point to 65%, since the last quarter.

Since December 2021, there has been a decrease from 68% to 65%, in those paying anything towards their maintenance. This drop of 3 percentage points over the last 4 quarters should be seen in the context of:

• a 5 percentage point decrease (from 82% to 77%) in the proportion of Paying Parents paying via Deduction from Benefits who paid anything towards their maintenance due, from December 2021 to December 2022. This group now accounts for 34% of all Paying Parents on Collect & Pay in December 2022 compared with 35% in December 2021
• a 3 percentage point decrease (from 56% to 53%) in the proportion of Paying Parents paying via Standing Order (Voluntary and Default) who paid anything towards their maintenance due, from December 2021 to December 2022. This group now accounts for 32% of all Paying Parents on Collect & Pay in December 2022 compared with 30% in December 2021
• a range of contributing factors including, but not exclusive to:
  • Paying Parents who were temporarily on Universal Credit (UC) during the COVID-19 pandemic moving off benefits
  • a change to government policy in October 2021, saw the removal of the temporary £20 uplift for UC claimants. This led to an increase in the number of UC claimants, who were due to pay via Deduction from Benefit, not having enough benefit remaining within the UC deduction cap to allow a Child Maintenance deduction to be taken

The COVID-19 pandemic had two main effects on the Collect & Pay compliance rate:

• during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, child maintenance deductions from Universal Credit (UC) were paused for one month (10th April to 9th May 2020). During this time, the Government paid all child maintenance liabilities for parents who were paying via deductions from UC. This raised the compliance rate for the quarter ending June 2020 only
• individuals paying via Deduction from Benefits are more likely to contribute some maintenance, as deductions are made automatically. December 2019 was the last quarter entirely unaffected by the Covid-19 pandemic. The proportion of parents paying via Deduction from Benefits increased following the Covid-19 pandemic, which saw more movement of people onto benefits. Deduction from Benefit cases accounted for 25% of all Paying Parents due to pay via Collect & Pay in the quarter ending December 2019 and rose to 41% by the quarter ending December 2020

See Stat-Xplore for more information on Paying Parents.

8. Paying Parents characteristics

In the quarter ending December 2022, of the 588,900 Paying Parents:

• 93% were recorded as male
• nearly three-quarters (73%) were between the ages of 30 and 50
• 56% had 1 qualifying child
• of those who had 2 or more qualifying children, 83% had 1 arrangement and 17% had 2 or more arrangements

Counts of qualifying children include all children who are associated with an open arrangement and are below 20 years of age.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on Paying Parents.

9. Child Maintenance due and paid

The CMS monitors payments made through the Collect & Pay service and can take enforcement action where necessary.

Parents on Direct Pay with unpaid maintenance owed will first have to transfer to Collect & Pay before the CMS can take any action. This means the Collect & Pay service consists of a subset of Paying Parents who are less likely to pay.

Child Maintenance due and paid each quarter, quarters ending December 2021 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2022, National Tables, table 5

During the quarter ending December 2022, £301.4 million Child Maintenance was due to be paid either via the Direct Pay service or the Collect & Pay service.

• £231.7 million was arranged through the Direct Pay service:
  • we do not measure the compliance of Paying Parents on the Direct Pay service
• £69.7 million was arranged through the Collect & Pay service:
  • £49.1 million was paid
  • £20.6 million was unpaid maintenance due to be paid through the Collect & Pay service including any transferred from Direct Pay

Since 2012, when the CMS began, £526.7 million in unpaid maintenance has accumulated. This amounts to 8% of all maintenance due to be paid since the start of the service. This proportion has remained the same since the quarter ending December 2021.

See tables 5 and 6 of the national tables for more information.

10. Enforcement

When a payment is missed, the CMS contacts the Paying Parent to arrange a recovery of what is owed and make clear the actions that may be pursued in the absence of a payment.

For parents on Collect & Pay, enforcement is automatically pursued on their behalf.

For parents on Direct Pay, the arrangement must be switched to the Collect & Pay service before any enforcement action can commence.

The CMS can enforce the collection of child maintenance in four major 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. courts – a Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid maintenance

The Child Maintenance Service can enforce the regular collection of ongoing maintenance through Deduction from Earnings Orders and Requests, or through Deduction from Benefits. The Paying Parent may also opt to use these methods of payment voluntarily.

Methods of Payment used on the Collect & Pay Service, quarters ending December 2020 to December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service Paying Parents data, available on StatXplore.

In the quarter ending December 2022, of 168,000 Paying Parents due to pay via the Collect & Pay service:

• 46,700 (28%) had a Deduction from Earnings Order or Request in place
• 57,400 (34%) were due to pay via Deduction from Benefits
• 64,000 (38%) were due to pay via other methods of payment

The “other methods of payment” were predominantly default standing orders. See Stat-Xplore for more information on payment methods.

December 2019 was the last quarter entirely unaffected by the COVID-19 pandemic. The proportion of parents paying via Deduction from Benefits increased following the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw more movement of people onto benefits. Deduction from Benefit cases accounted for 25% of all Paying Parents due to pay via Collect & Pay in the quarter ending December 2019 and rose to 41% by the quarter ending December 2020. Since then, this measure has been decreasing and has remained the same, at 34%, since the last quarter.

The CMS may pursue unpaid maintenance through the courts. The courts can grant liability orders, which allow further action to be taken, such as referral to enforcement agents, who can seize goods and sell them to cover any unpaid maintenance and costs. Where the Paying Parent is a homeowner, courts may grant a charging order against the property. This prevents any sale without repayment of unpaid maintenance. Ultimately, the court may grant an order for sale which forces the sale of the property.

Deduction Orders and Civil Enforcement Actions in process, quarters ending December 2020 and December 2022

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2022, National Tables, table 7.1

At the end of December 2022:

• 6,800 Liability Orders were in process
• 4,900 Regular or Lump Sum Deduction Orders were in process
• 3,500 Enforcement Agent Referrals were in process

If the above methods are unsuccessful, the CMS Service may apply for the courts to:

• disqualify the parent from holding or obtaining a driving licence
• disqualify the parent from holding or obtaining a passport
• send the parent to prison

In the past year to December 2022, the Child Maintenance Service has collected £3.6 million from Paying Parents with a sanctions action in process.

A Paying Parent is described as a having a sanctions action in process when a Service Request is raised to formally consider applying sanctions to a Paying Parent. Not all such cases will result in an application being made to courts - the volume and breakdown of cases reaching court is outlined in Table 7.2 of the national tables.

Sanctions are only used when every other method of recovering unpaid child maintenance has been tried. The Child Maintenance Service only pursues these sanctions when they believe the Paying Parent can pay but are refusing to do so.

See tables 7.1 and 7.2 of the national tables for more information.

11. About these statistics

Comparisons

Comparisons between these statistics on the CMS and statistics previously published on the Child Support Agency or CSA Tables 8.1 (Collections and write-off on case groups with CSA arrears) and 8.2 (Methods of debt collection for case groups with CSA arrears), which are now published alongside the CMS statistics, should not be made as the 2 services have different aims and cover different groups.

The government’s changes to the child maintenance system in 2012 were designed to encourage parents to work together to provide for their children. Child Maintenance Options was created to support parents to set up collaborative, family-based arrangements and then in November 2021 Child Maintenance Options was replaced with Get Help Arranging Child Maintenance (GHACM). The CMS was intended for those parents who cannot make family-based arrangements.

Rounding

Figures contained within this publication are rounded to the nearest hundred, percent, or £100,000. This means unrounded figures from the underlying data available on Stat Xplore may not sum exactly to the rounded totals used in this release. Percentages are calculated prior to rounding.

These statistics have been developed using guidelines set out by the UK Statistics Authority.

Changes made to this publication

No changes.

Where to find out more

Read the Background Information document for more details on the CMS statistics.

Read previous releases of these statistics.

Read information and statistics on family-based arrangements.

Related Statistics: Child Support Agency statistics and Estimates of the Separated Family Population Statistics.

12. Future Development and Your Feedback

Planned Changes

We are hoping to move more of our regular statistics to the Stat-Xplore platform in the near future.

Feedback and queries

If you have any views on the above changes, queries or feedback on any aspect of our statistics please email cm.analysis.research@dwp.gov.uk

Authors: Amy Grant and Ebun Edwin

Lead statistician: Juwaria Rahman

ISBN: 978-1-78659-508-9