Child Maintenance Service: Complaints
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many Child Maintenance Service cases in each of the last five years the Independent Case Examiner identified maladministration; and what common failings were identified.
Answered by Andrew Western
Where the Independent Case Examiner identifies maladministration in cases it investigates, an upheld finding will be reached. Such findings are either upheld, whereby the complaint is fully accepted and evidence supports the complaint, or partially upheld whereby some, but not all, of the issues raised in the complaint have merit.
The data in the table below provides a combined total of upheld and partially upheld outcomes in the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) cases the Independent Case Examiner considered over the last five full reporting years.
| 2020/21 | 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 | Total |
Upheld / partially upheld outcomes | 208 | 313 | 311 | 474 | 459 | 1765 |
Joanna Wallace, the Independent Case Examiner, provided written evidence to the House of Lords Public Services Committee Child Maintenance Inquiry 2025, in which she commented on emergent themes or common issues seen in CMS complaints.
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