CMS Corruption & Scandals

The Child Maintenance Service manages billions in arrears it cannot collect and calculations that neither parent can follow. Receiving parents and paying parents both end up convinced the state is working against them, and the audit reports suggest both have a point.

3 articles in this section

How the Child Maintenance Service failed me after my income collapsed

I supplied my HMRC tax return, submitted evidence repeatedly and made 16 calls. I am still fighting demands I cannot afford while trying to recover from a mental breakdown.

The Desk11 Sept 20269 min

CMS Corruption & Scandals

Unpaid child maintenance is on course to reach £1bn, thirteen years after the CMS was created to fix exactly this

The Child Maintenance Service was created to resolve the Child Support Agency’s arrears problem. The Public Accounts Committee projects unpaid maintenance on Collect and Pay reaching £1bn by 2031, and the National Audit Office found the service had not increased the number of effective maintenance arrangements at all.

Welfare Desk20 Aug 20262 min

CMS Corruption & Scandals

Parents are charged a fee when the CMS steps in because the other parent stopped paying

When a paying parent stops paying, the case moves to Collect and Pay and both parents are charged. The receiving parent loses a percentage of maintenance owed to their child as the price of the state enforcing an arrangement that somebody else broke.

Welfare Desk19 Aug 20262 min