Child Maintenance Service
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what process Child Maintenance Service uses to verify reports by constituents that incorrect or unverified information has been used in maintenance assessments.
Answered by Andrew Western
The primary goal of the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is to ensure that children receive the financial support they are entitled to. To achieve this, the CMS collaborates with HMRC and Benefit systems to accurately calculate maintenance payments. This collaboration helps prevent paying parents from misrepresenting their income. Parents can make a request to the CMS to have other forms of income not previously considered included in the maintenance calculation.
To tackle fraudulent reporting of earnings, if there is a suspicion of income misrepresentation, the Financial Investigations Unit (FIU) will conduct a thorough investigation. Complex income and cases where a paying parent may be responsible for declaring their own income can also be investigated by the FIU. This specialist team can request information from financial institutions to check the accuracy of information the CMS is given. When an investigation identifies evidence of criminal offences, the FIU will submit their findings to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to consider prosecution on offences contrary to the Child Support Act 1991.
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