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1690918

registered interest
date	21/02/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether he has plans to review the Child Maintenance Service's treatment of income from foreign assets held by paying parents.
tabling member constituency	Chesham and Amersham
tabling member printed	Sarah Green
uin	15210
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 26/02/2024 answer text <p>To calculate a child maintenance liability, the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) uses gross income information provided by HM Revenue &amp; Customs (HMRC) for the latest available full tax year. A variation application can be made by either parent to include income from certain assets including property that is subject to tax in the UK.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 26/02/2024 12:17:06 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4918 label Biography information for Sarah Green

1687607

registered interest
date	05/02/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the (a) shortest, (b) median and (c) longest waiting times for a child maintenance service liability order were in each of the last five years.
tabling member constituency	Cynon Valley
tabling member printed	Beth Winter
uin	13172
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 09/02/2024 answer text <p>The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to take rigorous action to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers. This approach is driven by the Payment Compliance strategy, increasing CMS compliance influencing activities to tackle non-paying cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours.</p><p>We move cases swiftly to Legal Enforcement, securing a Liability Order for 11k cases in the courts, in 2023.</p><p>CMS does not measure a) shortest, (b) median waiting times to secure a Liability Order but does measure an average of (c) longest. The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.</p><p> </p><p>CMS applies a Continuous Improvement focus to the Enforcement strategy and processes. The planned introduction of the Administrative Liability Order in 2024 will remove the need to apply to the courts and will reduce the average time of 22 weeks to secure a Liability Order to 6 weeks.</p><p>The published statistics below provides data, excluding waiting times, to September 2023: Section 9 Enforcement and National tables 7.1.</p><p><a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-september-2023" target="_blank">Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to September 2023 - GOV.UK(www.gov.uk)</a></p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 09/02/2024 11:04:16 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4809 label Biography information for Beth Winter

1686017

registered interest
date	30/01/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that the Child Maintenance Service enforces the collection of child maintenance payments from parents who are not living with their children.
tabling member constituency	Tiverton and Honiton
tabling member printed	Richard Foord
uin	12208
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/02/2024 answer text <p>The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) has a range of enforcement powers at its disposal to ensure parents meet their financial obligations to their children.</p><p> </p><p>These include deductions directly from earnings and bank accounts, using Enforcement Agents (previously known as bailiffs) to take control of goods, forcing the sale of property, removal of driving licence or UK passport or even commitment to prison.</p><p> </p><p>In 2023, The Government supported The Child Support (Enforcement) Act. This will allow the Child Maintenance Service to streamline the enforcement process by removing the requirement to obtain a court issued liability order and instead allow the Secretary of State to issue an administrative liability order. This will replace the court-based system and speed up the enforcement process.</p><p> </p><p>In October 2023, The Government consulted on &quot;Accelerating Enforcement&quot; to inform proposed regulations to support the introduction of administrative liability orders. We will be publishing the Government response shortly.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 06/02/2024 12:28:08 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4942 label Biography information for Richard Foord

1685481

registered interest
date	29/01/2024
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps the Child Maintenance Service is taking to improve collect and pay compliance.
tabling member constituency	Weaver Vale
tabling member printed	Mike Amesbury
uin	11857
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 06/02/2024 answer text <p>The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) continues to take rigorous action to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers. This approach is driven by the Payment Compliance strategy increasing CMS compliance influencing activities to tackle non-paying cases and challenge non-compliant behaviours. CMS applies a Continuous Improvement focus to Enforcement strategy and processes.</p><p>From the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-september-2023" target="_blank">latest CMS official statistics</a>, in the quarter ending In the quarter ending September 2023, of 180,000 Paying Parents due to pay via the Collect and Pay service:</p><ul><li>57,000 (31%) paid no maintenance</li><li>130,000 (69%) paid some maintenance, of which: 40,000 (22%) paid up to 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter (further breakdowns of this group are available on <a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/jsf/login.xhtml" target="_blank">Stat-Xplore</a>) 85,000 (47%) paid over 90% of the maintenance due for the quarter</li></ul><p>Further detail on compliance is provided in the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-september-2023/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-september-2023#About" target="_blank">About these statistics section</a> of this release.</p><p>As a result of this intense effort The Child Maintenance Service has a relatively low percentage of unpaid maintenance. Only 8% of the total maintenance due to be paid since the start of the CMS remains to be collected through Collect &amp; Pay. This was as high as 17% in March 2015.</p><p>CMS does not hesitate to step in and move a case to collect &amp; pay as soon as they are notified payments are not being made. Around 3% of direct pay arrangements move to collect and pay each quarter – a small percentage but this shows that parents can and do move to collect and pay to secure help in getting their child maintenance payments. With the focus of improving customer outcomes, there has been an increase from 64% to 69% of customers who are paying anything towards their maintenance via collect &amp; pay since September 2022.</p><p>The published statistics provides data to September 2023 - Section 6. Paying Parents and the Collect and Pay service and National Tables, table 5 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-september-2023" target="_blank">Child Maintenance Service statistics: data to September 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)</a></p><p>We’ve announced measures to significantly speed up CMS enforcement processes that will reduce the time it takes to secure a liability order from 22 weeks to as low as 6 weeks. A consultation on detailed proposals has recently concluded and the Government response will be published shortly.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 06/02/2024 12:15:48 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4667 label Biography information for Mike Amesbury

1677397

registered interest
date	12/12/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will publish a breakdown of resident and non-resident parents using the Child Maintenance Service by gender.
tabling member constituency	East Renfrewshire
tabling member printed	Kirsten Oswald
uin	6561
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2023 answer text <p>The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-on-the-2012-statutory-child-maintenance-scheme" target="_blank">official statistics</a> are published every three months. Statistics on the gender of paying parents using the CMS, from quarter ending March 2016 to quarter ending September 2023, can be found in the <a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/opendatabase?id=CMS_PARENT" target="_blank">CMS Paying Parent</a> dataset available on <a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/" target="_blank">Stat-Xplore</a>. Users can log in or access Stat-Xplore as a guest and, if needed, can access <a href="https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/Getting-Started.html" target="_blank">guidance</a> on how to extract the information required. The Department is considering expanding these statistics to cover more information on receiving parents.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 18/12/2023 15:32:22 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4413 label Biography information for Kirsten Oswald

1677398

registered interest
date	12/12/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if he will make an estimate of the number and proportion of parents using the Child Maintenance Service who are in debt as of 12 November 2023.
tabling member constituency	East Renfrewshire
tabling member printed	Kirsten Oswald
uin	6562
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2023 answer text <p>We have answered based on our assumption that the question asked is in connection with the number of people with child maintenance debt and not broader family financial challenges and debt (credit cards etc)</p><p> </p><p>In line with our published Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics the latest information only covers up to September 2023. The total amount of CMS parents with CMS debt is 233.3k. Please note that the debt considered in this calculation will include instances where the liability has been charged to a Paying Parent's account, but the scheduled collection date relating to that liability has not yet been reached. For a small number of Paying Parents, this will be the only 'debt' that they owe.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 18/12/2023 15:34:02 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4413 label Biography information for Kirsten Oswald

1677399

registered interest
date	12/12/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether Child Maintenance Service caseworkers receive training to identify parents with poor mental health.
tabling member constituency	East Renfrewshire
tabling member printed	Kirsten Oswald
uin	6563
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 18/12/2023 answer text <p>Within Child Maintenance Service learning there are several points where the material places emphasis on the importance of recognising potential mental health issues our customers may have and to signpost the customer to available support.</p><p> </p><p>Telephony modules focus on ensuring our processes are explained well and that customers have the time to provide information regarding their circumstances. The customer charter emphasises the need to try to understand the customers circumstances and to treat fairly and with respect. Empathy is defined and expectations for its use, are made clear.</p><p> </p><p>Our Domestic Abuse module focuses on recognising domestic abuse and signposting the customer when we are ready to take action. The module emphasises that our processes may cause distress and that learners must be sensitive to this.</p><p> </p><p>There is an emphasis on vulnerable customer support and the Tools to Support Complex Needs together with our Six Point Plan is available to remind learners of the support they have available to signpost customers. This module also references making referrals to our Advanced Customer Support.</p><p> </p><p>In addition, all CMS case workers colleagues receive Mental Health for Non-Coaching role. The overall objectives of this are to increase knowledge of mental health and behaviour, in order to work positively with customers considering their individual needs. The main subjects within this learning are:</p><p> </p><ul><li>Mental health terminology</li><li>The spectrum of good to poor mental health</li><li>Early personal impact</li><li>Building relationships</li><li>Responding correctly to unexpected behaviour</li><li>Dealing appropriately with unexpected behaviour</li><li>Positive language</li><li>Supporting customers – helping them to take practical steps</li><li>Disclosure</li><li>Taking care of yourself – sources of support.</li></ul><p> </p><p>There are also additional supporting products available for follow up learning on mental health. Our classroom learning is supported by a full programme of workplace support with the emphasis on customer impact.</p> answering member constituency Blackpool North and Cleveleys answering member printed Paul Maynard question first answered 18/12/2023 15:36:56 answering member 3926 label Biography information for Paul Maynard
tabling member	4413 label Biography information for Kirsten Oswald

1641256

registered interest
date	02/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what steps he is taking to improve the service being offered by the Child Maintenance Service.
tabling member constituency	Stockton South
tabling member printed	Matt Vickers
uin	187290
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/06/2023 answer text <p>The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) can play an effective role in helping lift children out of poverty. Through both family-based arrangements (FBAs) and CMS arrangements, we estimate receiving parents in separated families received £2.6 billion annually in child maintenance payments in the three financial years ending 2020 to 2022. Overall, we estimate that on average these payments kept 160,000 children out of absolute low income on an after-housing costs basis each year.</p><p> </p><p>The CMS is focussed on taking pro-active steps to improve the service being offered to both potential customers and those already in the service.</p><p> </p><p>In 2022 the CMS introduced a new digital service ‘Get Help arranging Child Maintenance’ (GHACHM). GHACM is a digital service, available 24/7, making it more accessible for customers.</p><p> </p><p>The majority of applications are now made online. Expanded payment functions via telephony and online services have also helped to provide more options to parents.</p><p> </p><p>CMS has made significant improvements in their telephony service and internal management information suggests the average time to answer calls has reduced by a third since 2021/22.</p><p> </p><p>The CMS recently piloted ‘Real Time Customer Feedback’ on behalf of the department to better understand customer experience.</p><p>A Private Members’ Bill (PMB) to streamline CMS enforcement, being taken forward by Siobhan Baillie, is currently ongoing working towards a third reading in the House of Lords. The PMB removes the requirement to make court applications for liability orders which enable the CMS to progress with enforcement action, thus improving the efficiency of the enforcement process.</p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 12/06/2023 15:42:41 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4844 label Biography information for Matt Vickers

1641305

registered interest
date	02/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what support his Department is providing to the Child Maintenance Service to reduce payment recalculation processing times.
tabling member constituency	Leeds North West
tabling member printed	Alex Sobel
uin	187328
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 12/06/2023 answer text <p>Significant improvements have been to the online service ‘My Child Maintenance Case’ to allow Child Maintenance Service customers report a range of changes that, with the associated automation and optimisation, have enabled reduction in payment re-calculation times. Examples of the types of changes that can now be reported through ‘My Child Maintenance Case’ include Paying Parent change of income and changes in shared care. In addition, through modernisation, the service is continuing to enable more and more automation in its regular casework and processing including the automation of changes when qualifying children leave full time education or when customers move on and off benefit. As well as speeding up certain changes this digitisation additionally creates time for caseworker to focus on delivering more complex changes that still require manual action improving speed and quality.</p><p> </p><p>Email and SMS campaigns are now also being used to signpost and inform customers of online services and the volume of customers who are using the online services continues to increase.</p><p> </p><p>As part of the wider DWP Service Modernisation Programme, further enhancements are being made that will support the reduction in time to re-calculate payments. This includes greater use of data available to automate the processing of changes and improved tailoring of the online services to make it easier for customers to navigate and use the online service so get their change made quicker.</p><p> </p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 12/06/2023 15:47:17 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4658 label Biography information for Alex Sobel

1641306

registered interest
date	02/06/2023
answering body	Department for Work and Pensions
answering dept id	29
answering dept short name	Work and Pensions
answering dept sort name	Work and Pensions
hansard heading	Child Maintenance Service
house id	1
legislature	25259 pref label House of Commons
question text	To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what the average processing time is for payment recalculations under the Child Maintenance Service .
tabling member constituency	Leeds North West
tabling member printed	Alex Sobel
uin	187329
answer	answer is ministerial correction date of answer 08/06/2023 answer text <p>The information requested is not readily available and to provide it would incur disproportionate cost.</p><p> </p><p>The Department publishes quarterly Child Maintenance Service (CMS) statistics, with the latest statistics available to the end of December 2022 found <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/child-maintenance-service-statistics-data-to-december-2022-experimental" target="_blank">here.</a></p> answering member constituency Mid Sussex answering member printed Mims Davies question first answered 08/06/2023 14:35:42 answering member 4513 label Biography information for Mims Davies
tabling member	4658 label Biography information for Alex Sobel