Children: Maintenance
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what plans are in place to speed up processes at the Child Maintenance Service, including the resolution of complaints up to and including the scheduling of tribunal hearings.
Answered by Department for Work and Pensions
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) is delivering a Modernisation Programme to improve customer access, efficiency and transparency. This includes integrated online application services, the My Child Maintenance Case (MCMC) service, which provides customers with online access to case information and payment schedules, and Customer Connect, which enables secure online communication between parents and caseworkers. Telephone and assisted digital support remain available for customers who need additional assistance.
The programme has also introduced improved digital communications, enhanced data sharing to support faster and more accurate maintenance calculations, and predictive analytics to help identify cases at risk of non compliance, which allows us to review the cases more swiftly and take action to ensure compliance is maintained.
The CMS complies with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) complaints service standard, to aim to resolve complaints or set a resolution plan within 15 working days. Where a complaint is complex and requires more time, the CMS will inform the complainant within this period of the next steps and when a response can be expected.
The CMS reviews overall resource supply and takes appropriate steps to ensure that staffing levels meet current demands and regularly reviews complaint data, including insights from the Independent Case Examiner, to identify key themes and trends, which they use to drive improvements to the complaint handling process. Furthermore, lessons learned are regularly presented to operational teams, supporting them to deliver effective interventions at the initial stage of the complaint and thereby improve the overall customer experience.
The CMS remains focussed on taking pro active steps to improve the customer experience, developing its customer service strategy to focus on improving current and future service throughout the customer journey.
HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is a separate government department and is responsible for the listing, scheduling and management of tribunal hearings. While CMS provides information required in relation to appeals, the timing of tribunal hearings is a matter for HMCTS.
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