Child maintenance

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Services

• How the Child Maintenance Service works out child maintenance

  See how the Child Maintenance Service works out maintenance and the rates they use

• Making child arrangements if you divorce or separate

  How to make arrangements for your children if you divorce or separate, mediation and how to apply for a court order if you cannot agree.

• Child maintenance if a parent lives abroad

  What to do if you need to get child maintenance and one of the parents lives abroad.

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News and communications

• Curfews proposed for parents who fail to pay child maintenance
  • 9 July 2022
  • Department for Work and Pensions
  • Press release
• Government needs to do more to improve the welfare of separated families
  • 22 October 2019
  • Social Security Advisory Committee
  • Press release

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Research and statistics

• Independent review of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) response to domestic abuse
  • 3 February 2023
  • Department for Work and Pensions
  • Independent report
• Child Maintenance Service statistics Northern Ireland (Experimental)
  • 30 September 2020
  • Department for Communities (Northern Ireland) and Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency
  • Official statistics
• SSAC Occasional Paper 22: Separated parents and the social security system
  • 21 July 2020
  • Social Security Advisory Committee
  • Independent report
• DWP employer engagement survey 2018
  • 22 November 2019
  • Department for Work and Pensions
  • Research
• Family Resources Survey: financial year 2017/18
  • 28 March 2019
  • Department for Work and Pensions
  • National statistics

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Policy papers and consultations

• Social security and separated parents
  • 31 October 2019
  • Social Security Advisory Committee
  • Consultation outcome
  • Date closed 16 April 2019
• Government response to the independent review of the Child Maintenance Service response to domestic abuse
  • 19 January 2023
  • Department for Work and Pensions
  • Policy paper

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Organisations

• Department for Work & Pensions
• HM Courts & Tribunals Service
• Ministry of Justice
• Official Solicitor and Public Trustee

• Social Security Advisory Committee