Department for Work and Pensions written question – answered at on 13 March 2026.
Sam Rushworth
Labour, Bishop Auckland
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many paying parents were newly recorded as being in arrears by the Child Maintenance Service in each of the last 24 months.
Andrew Western
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions
The information requested is not readily available and providing it would incur disproportionate cost.
The Child Maintenance Service (CMS) will do everything within its powers to make sure parents comply. Where parents fail to take responsibility for paying for their children, the Service will not hesitate to use the range of enforcement powers available to collect maintenance, combining robust negotiation activity with the highly effective use of its extensive range of Enforcement Powers.
CMS has a wide range of strong enforcement powers including deductions from earnings orders, removal of driving licences, disqualification from holding a passport, and committal to prison. The CMS also introduced powers to enable the deduction of child maintenance directly from a wider range of accounts, including certain joint and business accounts, and target complex earners via a calculation of notional income based on assets.
The Service is committed to using these powers fairly and in the best interests of children and separated families.
Yes2 people think so
No1 person thinks not
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
