OPFS response to House of Lords debate on Reforming the Child Maintenance Service

Public Services Committee 

The Public Services Committee report concluded that the current child maintenance calculation is neither fair nor transparent and is based on outdated legislation that no longer reflects modern family structures. It also highlighted concerns that the calculation has not kept pace with the costs of raising children and called for a review of how child maintenance is calculated.

House of Lords debate/Government response

The Government announced plans to reduce the recalculation threshold from 25% to 15% and include unearned income in the standard calculation, while rejecting a move to a Family Court-style approach suggested during the debate.

OPFS response

We welcome the Committee’s recognition that the current calculation is outdated. Our research found that parents wanted a system that is fairer, more transparent and more responsive to changes in circumstances. We particularly welcome the reduction in the recalculation threshold and the inclusion of unearned income. However, more detail is needed on how complex cases involving self-employed and diverted income will be addressed.

Public Services Committee 

The Committee report and debate highlighted concerns about poor communication, enforcement delays, lack of trust in the Child Maintenance Service and whether the service is doing enough to support victim-survivors of domestic and economic abuse.

House of Lords debate/Government response

The Government has committed to continuing the named caseworker pilot. It has also argued that requiring survivors to provide evidence of domestic abuse in order to access Collect & Pay could risk re-traumatising them, and intends instead to move away from Direct Pay altogether.

OPFS response

Single parent families have told us that navigating the Child Maintenance Service can feel like a game of snakes and ladders. Too often, parents become trapped in a repeated cycle of delays and setbacks, often having to repeat traumatic experiences only to find themselves back where they started. For some, the process becomes so exhausting that they give up altogether, leaving children without the financial support they are entitled to and placing even greater pressure on families already struggling to make ends meet.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to continue piloting named caseworkers for parents affected by domestic abuse. However, safeguarding must go beyond continuity of support. Parents told us they often had to repeatedly recount traumatic experiences and experienced inconsistent responses. We believe trauma-informed practice, specialist domestic abuse expertise and safeguarding should be embedded throughout the Child Maintenance Service.

Public Services Committee 

The committee was very clear that child maintenance should be understood as a poverty reduction tool, not simply an administrative system.

House of Lords debate/Government response

The Government has included child maintenance as an anti-poverty measure in its UK Child Poverty Strategy and has committed to reforms intended to increase compliance to ensure more children receive the child maintenance they are entitled to.

OPFS response

This reflects a central finding of the Transforming Child Maintenance project: child maintenance is one of the most important tools available for increasing family incomes and reducing child poverty.

Modelling by IPPR Scotland as part of the Transforming Child Maintenance project shows that around 210,000 children across the UK could be lifted out of poverty if they received the financial support they are entitled to. We need action that matches the scale of that opportunity

Public Services Committee

The Committee raised serious concerns about delays in enforcement and recommended faster action to recover unpaid maintenance. It also said it was not persuaded by the Government’s case for abolishing Direct Pay and recommended that the Government publish clear evidence that the change would improve compliance and result in more money reaching children.

House of Lords debate / Government response

The Government remains committed to moving away from Direct Pay towards a single Collect & Pay service and has said this will allow payments to be monitored and non-payment identified earlier. It has also committed to strengthening enforcement, including through new Administrative Liability Orders.

OPFS response

We welcome the focus on stronger and earlier enforcement. Parents consistently told us that lengthy delays undermine confidence in the CMS and leave children without the financial support they are entitled to.

We support the principle of a universal statutory payment platform that enables missed payments to be identified earlier and action to be taken before arrears escalate. However, simply moving everyone from Direct Pay to Collect & Pay will not by itself address the wider problems with the system.

We continue to believe that parents should not have to pay fees to access statutory support to secure money their children are entitled to. Effective collection and enforcement must also sit alongside strong safeguarding, good communication and appropriate support for families.

Public Services Committee

The Committee concluded that the current calculation does not adequately reflect modern family structures or account for shared care and called for this to be considered as part of wider reform of the calculation. It proposed modelling shared care on the Family Court Model.

House of Lords debate / Government response

The Government rejected the Committee’s proposal to draw on the Family Court model, arguing that this could introduce greater complexity and delays. It has not announced a specific alternative approach to shared care.

OPFS response

Our research found that shared care is one of the most complex aspects of the child maintenance calculation. While overnight stays are an imperfect measure, parents identified no clear alternative and we concluded they remain the most practical approach. Given the complexity of this issue and the lack of a clear consensus on a better alternative, we believe any significant change to the way 50:50 shared care is treated would require considerable further research and consultation with parents.

We are also concerned that shared care can become a factor in disputes about child maintenance when decisions about care should always be based on the best interests of the child. Parents have also told us that, in some cases, disputes around shared care and child maintenance can be used as a means of continuing domestic and economic abuse after separation. Any changes to the treatment of shared care within the calculation must take these risks into account, with safeguarding and the potential for unintended consequences carefully considered.

We recognise that some paying parents face genuine housing affordability pressures in providing overnight care. However, the child’s main household continues to meet many fixed costs regardless of overnight stays. We believe these wider affordability challenges should be addressed through housing policy rather than by reducing child maintenance.

Public Services Committee

The Committee found that the Child Maintenance Service is not adequately signposted to parents who may need it and recommended improving awareness of the service and better integrating child maintenance with wider family support.

Government

The Government accepted that more should be done to improve information and support for separating parents.

OPFS response

We strongly support better access to information and support. Parents consistently told us they struggled to find independent advice and often only accessed help once problems had escalated.

We have long called for parents to have access to independent information, advice and advocacy outside the CMS. We are pleased that this is now being taken forward in Scotland through specialist child maintenance support funded by the Scottish Government.