This is the latest release of statistics on the Child Maintenance Service between January 2015 and December 2020. The release includes revisions to previously published statistics.

The next release is planned for June 2021.

1. Introduction

The Child Maintenance Service was introduced in December 2012 as part of the Government’s Child Maintenance reforms. It replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) and is for separated parents who cannot arrange child maintenance between themselves.

Direct Pay is where the Child Maintenance Service calculates the amount of maintenance to be paid and parents arrange the payments between themselves.

If parents cannot do this or they do not pay what was agreed, then the Child Maintenance Service can collect and manage the payments between the parents. This is the Collect & Pay service.

The Child Maintenance Service has a range of enforcement actions it can use if the Paying Parent refuses to pay their child maintenance.

Effect of COVID-19

During the quarter ending December 2020, the Child Maintenance Service resumed virtually all areas of service delivery, with the exception of some enforcement activities requiring participation by key partners (such as bailiffs and courts) and the Child Maintenance Service are still operating a reduced telephony service. The Child Maintenance Service has been focusing on the recovery and enforcement of outstanding arrears by reviewing all non-paying cases to ensure each one is up-to-date. The statistics continue to reflect the return to normal for virtually all pre-COVID-19 levels of service delivery and include clearing any backlogs that may have built up during the first few months of the pandemic when resources were redirected to other parts of Department of Work and Pensions.

2. Main stories

Children covered by Child Maintenance Service arrangements, December 2018 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics available on StatXplore.

There are 756,500 children covered by the Child Maintenance Service arrangements:

• 492,400 children covered through Direct Pay arrangements
• 259,100 children covered through the Collect & Pay Service
• 5,000 children not yet assigned to a service

The number of children covered by the Child Maintenance service has increased by 7,000 since the previous quarter. The number of children has increased steadily over the last two years.

Compliance rate of Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service, December 2019 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics available on StatXplore.

In the quarter ending December 2020, of Paying Parents who are due to pay via the Collect & Pay service:

• 41,300 (28%) did not pay anything towards their child maintenance
• 107,100 (72%) paid something towards their child maintenance:
  • 33,300 (22%) paid up to 90% of their child maintenance (further breakdowns of this group are available on StatXplore
  • 73,800 (50%) paid over 90% of their child maintenance

We have grouped parents paying over 90% because even if a Paying Parent is fully complying with an arrangement, the compliance rate may not be exactly 100%. This is due to differences between how liability accumulates on the Child Maintenance Service ‘liability schedule’ (used to calculate the amount due), and how collections are scheduled in practice. Also, the Paying Parent may have paid more than 100% of their liability where they have paid additional maintenance during the quarter, in order to pay off arrears that have previously accumulated.

The COVID-19 outbreak had two main effects on the Collect & Pay compliance rate since March 2020:

1. During the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, child maintenance deductions from Universal Credit (UC) were paused for one month between April 10th and May 9th 2020. During this time the Government paid all child maintenance liabilities for parents paying via deductions from UC. This affected the compliance for the quarter ending June 2020 only.

2. There was an increased movement of people onto benefits. Therefore, more parents are paying via Deduction from Benefits; these individuals are now more likely to contribute some maintenance, as deductions are made automatically. This affected the compliance for the quarter ending June 2020, and continued to impact subsequent quarters. Deduction from Benefit cases typically account for 21% to 24% of all Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service; since the quarter ending June 2020 they have accounted for approximately 40%. This effect is likely to persist over an extended time period.

3. What you need to know

Child maintenance refers to financial (and non-financial support if both parents agree) for children that the parent without the main day-to-day care of a child provides to the other parent. For the purpose of this publication, a maintenance arrangement is an agreement to provide financial support for a child’s everyday living costs.

Separated parents can arrange child maintenance themselves. This is called a ‘family-based arrangement’ and is a private way to sort out child maintenance. Parents arrange everything themselves and no-one else has to be involved.

The Child Maintenance Service which replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) is for when parents cannot agree to a family-based arrangement. Parents wishing to use the Child Maintenance Service must first contact Child Maintenance Options (CM Options).

CM Options is a free service that provides impartial information and support to help separated parents make decisions about their child maintenance arrangements.

Read information on child maintenance arrangements made after speaking to CM Options.

Definitions

Receiving Parent

The Receiving Parent has the main day-to-day care of the children and receives the child maintenance.

Paying Parent

The Paying Parent does not have the main day-to-day care of the children and pays child maintenance.

Children covered

Children covered is the number of children for whom the Paying Parent has a child maintenance arrangement.

Compliance

This measures how much maintenance has been successfully collected from the Paying Parent, compared to the amount of new maintenance arranged via the Collect & Pay service in that three-month period. Note that, if a parent is trying to settle arrears that have previously accumulated, they would need to pay more than the amount of new maintenance arranged during the quarter.

See the Background Information document for more details.

4. Applications to the Child Maintenance Service

Parents who want to apply to the Child Maintenance Service must pay a £20 application fee. Parents do not have to pay this if they:

• have been a victim of domestic abuse
• declare their child has been the victim of abuse
• are under 19 years of age

Some applications to the Child Maintenance Service are from parents who previously had an arrangement with the Child Support Agency. All Child Support Agency cases with an ongoing liability were closed by December 2018, and parents were encouraged to make a new family-based arrangement or an arrangement through the Child Maintenance Service. However, the Child Maintenance Service may still receive applications from such parents, as they may have had a family-based arrangement in the interim.

Applications to the Child Maintenance Service, December 2018 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2020, National Tables, table 3

In the last quarter, ending December 2020, the intake was 17,600.

At the end of December 2020, the Child Maintenance Service was managing 537,000 arrangements for 502,000 Paying Parents. This is a 6% increase to the number of arrangements since the end of December 2019.

See tables 1-3 and 7 of the national tables for more information.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on arrangements and paying parents.

5. Composition of cases on the Child Maintenance Service

When a parent makes an application to the Child Maintenance Service, they will be told how much child maintenance should be paid.

Some parents will then arrange the payments between themselves: this service is known as Direct Pay. The CMS simply provides the calculation and no further use of the service is required. Direct Pay can be chosen by either parent with the other’s agreement. Neither parent pays collection fees under Direct Pay.

Parents are issued a text message 3 months after they set up a Direct Pay arrangement, and at each annual review, to check that the arrangement is still meeting their requirements.

If parents cannot arrange payments between themselves, or if the Paying Parent does not keep up with the payments, the receiving parent can ask the Child Maintenance Service to switch the case to the Collect & Pay service.

Under the Collect & Pay service, the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance, including recovery of unpaid maintenance that built up under the Direct Pay service, then collects the payment from the Paying Parent and pays it to the Receiving Parent.

There are ongoing collection charges for use of the Collect & Pay service, payable by both the Paying Parent (20% on top of the maintenance amount), and the Receiving Parent (4% taken out of the amount of maintenance).

Non-compliance under the Collect and Pay service could lead to the use of enforcement powers

Flow of arrangements on the Child Maintenance Service, quarter ending December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2020, National Tables, table 4

The flow of arrangements around the Child Maintenance Service in the quarter December 2020 showed:

• most new applicants choose to start on Direct Pay: 12,400 new applicants joined Direct Pay during the quarter ending December 2020
• 63% of all Child Maintenance Service arrangements use Direct Pay, with 36% using Collect & Pay
• more parents moved from Direct Pay to Collect & Pay than the other way around: 8,100 parents switched to Collect & Pay during this quarter
• the number of arrangements increased by 5,600 during this quarter
• the number of arrangements not yet assigned to a service is down to 4,000 from 5,300 in the previous quarter ending September 2020

See table 4 of the national tables for more information.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on arrangements.

6. Children covered by the Child Maintenance Service

Children covered by the Child Maintenance Service, December 2018 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics available on StatXplore.

At the end of December 2020:

• 492,400 children were covered by 339,700 Direct Pay arrangements
• 259,100 children were covered by 193,300 arrangements through the Collect & Pay service:
  • 160,400 of these children were covered by 114,200 Collect & Pay arrangements where the Paying Parent paid some maintenance during the quarter
• the number of children has increased steadily over the last 2 years

65% of all children covered by Child Maintenance Service are covered through Direct Pay arrangements, with 21% covered by Collect & Pay arrangements for which some maintenance was paid in the quarter, and 14% covered by Collect & Pay arrangements for which no maintenance was paid in the quarter (this will include cases with no ongoing liability in the quarter). These proportions have changed little over the last 12 months.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on children.

7. Paying Parents and the Collect and Pay service

This includes Paying Parents transferred from the Direct Pay service because they have failed to keep up with payments.

Compliance rate of Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay Service, December 2018 to December 2020

Source (quarter ending December 2018 and June 2019 compliance rate): Child Maintenance Service statistics data to September 2020, National Tables, table 6

Source (all other data): Child Maintenance Service statistics available on StatXplore.

In the quarter ending December 2020, of Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service:

• 41,300 (28%) did not pay anything towards their child maintenance
• 107,100 (72%) paid something towards their child maintenance:
  • 33,300 (22%) paid up to 90% of their child maintenance (further breakdowns of this group are available on StatXplore)
  • 73,800 (50%) paid over 90% of their child maintenance

We have grouped parents paying over 90% because even if a Paying Parent is fully complying with an arrangement, the compliance rate may not be exactly 100%. This is due to differences between how liability accumulates on the Child Maintenance Service ‘liability schedule’ (used to calculate the amount due), and how collections are scheduled in practice. Also, the Paying Parent may have paid more than 100% of their liability where they have paid additional maintenance during the quarter, in order to pay off arrears that have previously accumulated.

The COVID-19 outbreak had two main effects on the Collect & Pay compliance rate since March 2020:

1. During the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, child maintenance deductions from Universal Credit (UC) were paused for one month between April 10th and May 9th 2020. During this time the Government paid all child maintenance liabilities for parents paying via deductions from UC. This affected the compliance for the quarter ending June 2020 only.

2. There was an increased movement of people onto benefits. Therefore, more parents are paying via Deduction from Benefits; these individuals are now more likely to contribute some maintenance, as deductions are made automatically. This affected the compliance for the quarter ending June 2020, and continued to impact subsequent quarters. Deduction from Benefit cases typically account for 21% to 24% of all Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service; since the quarter ending June 2020 they have accounted for approximately 40%. This effect is likely to persist over an extended time period.

See Stat-Xplore for more information on Paying Parents.

8. Child Maintenance due and paid

The Child Maintenance Service monitors payments made through the Collect & Pay service and can take enforcement action where necessary.

Parents on Direct Pay with unpaid maintenance owed will first have to transfer to Collect & Pay before the Child Maintenance Service can take any action. This means the Collect & Pay service consists of a subset of Paying Parents who are less likely to pay.

Child Maintenance due and paid each quarter, March 2019 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2020, National Tables, table 5

During the quarter ending December 2020, £259.2 million Child Maintenance was due to be paid.

£244.0 million was paid through the Collect & Pay service or due to be paid through Direct Pay arrangements:

• £201.8 million due to be paid through Direct Pay arrangements
• £42.2 million paid through the Collect & Pay service

Over the long term, the amount of money due to be paid through the Child Maintenance Service has been rising as the number of parents using the service has increased.

£15.2 million of maintenance due to be paid through the Collect & Pay service in the quarter ending December 2020 was not paid.

Since 2012, when the Child Maintenance Service began, £395.8 million in unpaid maintenance is owed through the Collect & Pay service. This amounts to 9% of all maintenance due to be paid since the start of the service and includes unpaid maintenance transferred from Direct Pay to Collect & Pay.

See tables 5 and 6 of the national tables for more information.

9. Enforcement

When a payment is missed, the Child Maintenance Service contacts the Paying Parent to arrange a recovery of what is owed or to make clear the actions that may be pursued in the absence of a payment.

For parents on Collect & Pay, enforcement is automatically pursued on their behalf.

For parents on Direct Pay (where the receiving parent asks the Child Maintenance Service to take action) the arrangement is first switched to the Collect & Pay service before any enforcement action can commence.

The Child Maintenance Service can enforce the collection of child maintenance in four major ways:

1. deduction from earnings order or request – money is recovered from the Paying Parent’s earnings via their employer, who will be instructed on the amount to deduct
2. deduction from benefit – money is recovered from the Paying Parent’s benefits
3. deduction order – money is deducted directly from the Paying Parent’s bank or building society account
4. courts – a Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid maintenance

The Child Maintenance Service can enforce the regular collection of ongoing maintenance through Deduction from Earnings Orders and Requests or through Deduction from Benefits. The Paying Parent may also opt to use these methods of payment voluntarily.

Methods of Payments used on the Collect & Pay Service, December 2019 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics available on StatXplore.

At the end of December 2020:

• 43,300 Deduction from Earnings Orders and Requests were in place
• 60,300 Deduction from Benefits were in place
• 44,800 other methods of payments were in place; these were predominantly default standing orders. See StatXplore. for more information on payment methods

The number of parents paying via Deduction from Benefits has increased by 23,800 over the last year. This large increase is due to the COVID-19 outbreak, which saw an increased movement of people onto benefits. This meant more parents paying via Deduction from Benefits. Deduction from Benefit cases accounted for 25% of all Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay service for the quarter ending December 2019; this has increased to 41% for the quarter ending December 2020.

The Child Maintenance Service may pursue unpaid maintenance through the courts. The courts can grant liability orders, which allow further action to be taken, such as referral to enforcement agents, who can seize goods and sell them to cover any unpaid maintenance and costs.

Where the Paying Parent is a homeowner, courts may grant a charging order against the property, which prevents any sale without repayment of the outstanding amount. Ultimately, the court may grant an order for sale which forces the sale of the property.

Deduction Orders and Civil Enforcement Actions in process, December 2019 to December 2020

Source: Child Maintenance Service statistics data to December 2020, National Tables, table 7.1

If the above methods are unsuccessful, the Child Maintenance Service may apply for the courts to:

• disqualify the parent from holding or obtaining a driving licence
• disqualify the parent from holding or obtaining a passport
• send the parent to prison

See tables 7.1 and 7.2 of the national tables for more information.

Enforcement during the COVID-19 outbreak

Taking substantial enforcement action relies on third parties, including Her Majesty’s courts, bailiffs and the banks, a number of which are currently not in a position to fully support some avenues of enforcement action.

All banks are able to take Deduction Order requests. Liability Orders, which are the gateway measure to legal enforcement activity, require the most court involvement. They have been the most difficult measure to restart while social distancing requirements remain in place. The Child Maintenance Service is working with Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service to explore alternatives to resume hearings as soon as possible.

10. About these statistics

Quality note

A minor issue has been found in the source data for December 2020. We estimate that around 1,800 (0.3%) arrangements have been omitted from this quarter’s data. This will have a knock on impact on counts of parents and children. This is being investigated and therefore these figures may be revised in the next publication.

Comparisons

Comparisons between these statistics on the Child Maintenance Service and statistics on the Child Support Agency should not be made as the 2 services have different aims and cover different groups.

The government’s changes to the child maintenance system in 2012 were designed to encourage parents to work together to provide for their children. Child Maintenance Options was created to support parents to set up collaborative, family-based arrangement. The Child Maintenance Service was intended for those parents who cannot make family-based arrangements.

Rounding

Figures contained within this publication are rounded to the nearest hundred, percent, or £100,000, therefore unrounded figures from the underlying data available on Stat Xplore may not sum exactly to the rounded totals used in this release Percentages are calculated prior to rounding.

These statistics have been developed using guidelines set out by the UK Statistics Authority.

Changes made to this publication

Stat-Xplore

We are now providing information about Paying Parents (including amounts due and compliance) via the Department for Work and Pensions StatXplore tool. Therefore, tables ‘Paying Parents Compliance’ (previously Table 6) and ‘How much Child Maintenance were Paying Parents due to pay?’ (previously Table 5) have been removed from the ODS tables.

We have provided the previously published tables as pre-made tables on StatXplore for user ease.

This tool allows users to create custom statistical tables relating to Paying Parents on the Child Maintenance Service with new breakdowns of the data and at a lower level of geography than previously provided.

This means the table numbering in the ODS tables has changed to reflect the fact two tables are no longer included in this way (see contents pages in the ODS files for further details).

Where to find out more

Read previous releases of these statistics.

Read information and statistics on family-based arrangements.

Related Statistics: Child Support Agency statistics and Estimates of the Separated Family Population Statistics.

Authors: Amy Grant and James Kerr

Lead statistician: Juwaria Rahman

Feedback is welcome, send comments to: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-78659-313-9