Child Maintenance Service: Standards
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, with reference to the Government’s response to the consultation entitled Child Maintenance: Improving the Collection and Transfer of Payments, published on 23 June 2025, what steps she plans to take to ensure compliance from paying parents in receipt of benefits who are exempt from the 20 per cent non-compliance fee.
Answered by Andrew Western
The CMS believes that all parents have an obligation to support their children regardless of their financial situation. The CMS is able to deduct £8.40 a week towards ongoing maintenance or arrears from certain prescribed benefits.
When a paying parent is in receipt of benefits, CMS will send a request to set up a Deduction from Benefit (DfB) to collect ongoing maintenance. This means that where benefit levels allow, maintenance will be paid.
The overall cap for Universal Credit (UC) deductions was reduced from the current 25% of the standard allowance to 15% from April 2025. Alongside this, child maintenance deductions moved higher up the priority order.
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