Child maintenance reform: time for bolder action

Following a government consultation on reforms to the child maintenance service (on which Both Parents Matter was a key stakeholder on behalf of paying parents), the government’s proposed changes are:

Removal of “Direct Pay”, the free-to-use service whereby the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) supplies parents with a calculation and payment schedule, the paying parent pays the receiving parent directly, with generally no further involvement from the CMS (except in cases of non-compliance).
All CMS cases to therefore be on a version of the current “Collect and Pay” scheme, where both parents pay a fee for the CMS to collect and transfer payments on their behalf.
Changes to the Collect and Pay fees. These are currently 20% of the maintenance amount for paying parents and 4% for receiving parents. This will be changed to 2% for compliant paying parents, 20% if non-compliant, and 2% for receiving parents.
A 3-month notice period to move parents currently on Direct Pay to Collect and Pay.

These reforms require legislative change, therefore need to go through Parliament with introduction not until 2027 or 2028 (and subject to Parliamentary time).

Whilst we argued for the retention of Direct Pay, we are generally supportive of other proposed reforms which we argued for, being:

significantly reduced fees for compliant paying parents in Collect and Pay with reduced fees for the receiving parent
paying parents on a deduction from benefits order being exempted from the 20% non-compliance fee
more opportunities for paying parents to prove compliance and/or explain missed payments
more digital assistance and awareness raising to help families make private, family-based arrangements away from the CMS.

However, as we have consistently argued in this and other consultation responses, and in our CEO’s oral evidence to the House of Lords current inquiry into child maintenance, achieving the objectives of reducing arrears, tackling non-compliance and getting more money to children, cannot be achieved until there is fundamental reform of the calculation system, which too often produces unaffordable calculations. There is a direct link from unaffordability to non-compliance, particularly for those on lower pay. Until a fairer calculation system is devised, the government’s laudable aim to “deliver a fair, trustworthy, accessible service”, cannot be achieved. This review of calculations is taking place, we have made our proposals and we look forward to contributing further to the government consultation on this later this year. However, as well as aiming for more radical reform on calculations, such reform must be introduced at the same time, and preferably before, the government’s proposals on Direct Pay, etc. Until the calculation rules are changed, the government’s proposals are deeply flawed.

The government proposals on Direct Pay and Collect and Pay and its consultation response can be found here – Government response: Child Maintenance: Improving the collection and transfer of payments – GOV.UK

Why not contribute to this debate by emailing news.team@bothparentsmatter.org.uk?

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