Children: Maintenance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many cases have been closed by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last five years; and what were the primary reasons for closure.
Answered by Andrew Western
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) operates under statutory guidelines to ensure maintenance arrangements are managed effectively and remains committed to supporting parents and ensuring that child maintenance arrangements are fair, sustainable, and responsive to changing circumstances.
The Department regularly publishes Child Maintenance Service official statistics, with the latest statistics available to September 2025. Table 3 of the accompanying National tables provides the number of arrangements moving from one service type to another within the Child Maintenance Service each quarter. In addition, the table shows the number of arrangements which were closed between October 2015 and September 2025.
The information requested on the reasons for closure is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.
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