UK CMS Fight for Change

What We Are Campaigning For

The CMS is broken — here's how we fix it

The Child Maintenance Service is governed by the Child Support Act 1991 — legislation that was designed to ensure children are financially supported by both parents. That principle is right. But in practice, CMS has drifted far from that intent. Paying parents are being failed by a system that lacks fairness, transparency and accountability. These are our three demands for fundamental reform.

The legal framework: The CMS operates under the Child Support Act 1991 (as amended by the Child Maintenance and Other Payments Act 2008 and the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023), governed by the Child Support Maintenance Calculation Regulations 2012. The legislation gives CMS wide enforcement powers — but provides paying parents with very limited protections, no right to itemised payment statements, no mandatory reconsideration requirement that CMS must proactively communicate, and no statutory duty of care. These gaps are what we are demanding Parliament closes.

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Pillar One

Fairness

The system must treat paying parents equitably — in law and in practice

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True 50/50 equal parenting recognitionThe legislation already provides for this under Reg 50 of the 2012 Calculation Regulations — where equal shared care exists, no maintenance is owed by either parent. CMS routinely ignores court-ordered arrangements and misapplies this provision.

End gross income calculationsCMS assesses liability on gross income — before tax and National Insurance — unlike every other state means-test in the UK. Universal Credit, Legal Aid, and Housing Benefit all use net income. There is no legislative requirement to use gross income.

Review the 12-hour education thresholdUnchanged since 1991, a child attending college just 2.5 days per week qualifies as full-time with no duty on CMS to verify attendance — only enrolment.

Introduce a financial means assessmentHousing costs, existing debts, and other dependants are invisible to CMS. No other state financial assessment ignores actual disposable income. Citizens Advice reported a 39% rise in paying parents challenging their assessments.

End the financial reward for denying contactOvernight stays reduce payments — creating a direct financial incentive for resident parents to block contact. A paying parent denied access through ignored court orders pays the same rate as one who has disengaged voluntarily.

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Pillar Two

Transparency

Paying parents deserve to understand exactly what they owe, why, and how it was calculated

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Itemised payment statements — like a bankEvery bank, every utility, every regulated financial service provides regular itemised statements. CMS does not. Paying parents are entitled to know exactly what they owe, what they have paid, and how every charge was calculated. This must be mandatory.

Mandatory Reconsideration must be proactively explainedPaying parents have a legal right to request a Mandatory Reconsideration of any CMS decision. CMS has no duty to tell parents this right exists. Thousands are paying assessments they could legally challenge because they were never informed.

Full transparency on charges, payments and enforcement actionsBackdated charges appearing without notice. DEOs issued without prior warning. These practices would be unlawful in any regulated financial service. CMS must provide written notice before any financial action is taken.

Written breakdown of every calculationEvery paying parent should receive a written explanation of exactly how their liability was reached — the income figure used, which HMRC data was applied, what variations were considered, and what appeal rights exist.

Verified overnight stay records accessible to both partiesWhen contact arrangements reduce payments, both parents should have access to the same agreed, verifiable record — not a system where one party’s unverified claim determines the other’s liability.

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Pillar Three

Accountability

CMS must face real consequences when it fails — and the system must be rebuilt to prevent failure

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CMS must be held accountable when it gets things wrongCurrently CMS can ignore a formal complaint for 40 working days with no consequence. There is no statutory penalty for failure to respond, no automatic compensation for maladministration, and no duty of care to either parent.

Enforcement must pause while a complaint is activeThe current system allows CMS to continue enforcement — including Deductions from Earnings Orders — while a complaint about that very enforcement is being investigated. This is fundamentally unjust and must be prohibited by law.

The CMS IT system must be replacedThe current system cannot track calls, emails, and letters in a single case record. Case workers have no full correspondence history. This directly causes the errors that generate complaints — and then prevents those complaints from being properly investigated.

A secure correspondence portal for all partiesPaying parents, receiving parents, and CMS should all be able to reply by email, upload letters and documents, and maintain a shared verified record — eliminating the current situation where CMS “cannot find” letters it has been sent.

Independent oversight of all enforcement decisionsA Deduction from Earnings Order removes money directly from someone’s salary. It should require independent human review — not be issued automatically by an algorithm. The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 massively increased CMS powers with no corresponding increase in paying parent protections.

Education threshold

Review the 12-hour rule and mandate attendance verification

A child attending college just two and a half days a week is classified as "full-time" — unchanged since 1991. We demand the threshold be raised and CMS be given a statutory duty to verify actual attendance, not just enrolment.

Contact & equal care

End the financial incentive to deny contact

Overnight stays reduce payments — creating a direct financial reward for blocking contact. Where court-ordered contact is being denied, CMS calculations must reflect actual arrangements, not what one party claims. Equal shared care must be properly applied under Reg 50.

Income calculation

Switch from gross to net income assessment

CMS is the only state financial assessment that uses gross income. Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, Legal Aid — all use net. We demand alignment with every other means-tested system in the UK, as the Child Support Act 1991 does not require gross income to be used.

Financial means

Introduce a financial means assessment

Housing costs, existing debts, and other dependants are invisible to CMS. We demand a proper financial means assessment that considers actual disposable income — bringing CMS into line with the fundamental fairness principles the Child Support Act was originally designed to uphold.

Duty of care

A statutory duty of care and independent oversight

CMS currently has no statutory duty of care to paying parents. The Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023 massively increased CMS enforcement powers — with no corresponding increase in paying parent protections. We demand that balance be redressed in law.

Community Stories

Paying parents who've been let down

Real accounts from paying parents across the UK — reviewed by the campaign team and published with consent. Every name is anonymised. If you recognise your own situation here, you are not alone.

G. — Campaign Founder

Hertfordshire

"After 10+ years of continuous payments without a single missed month, my bank cancelled my direct debit without my instruction..."

Mark K.

Manchester, Greater Manchester

"My daughter moved in with me full time at 17. The CMS took four months to acknowledge this and continued collecting payments throughout..."

James T.

Bristol, South West

"After a court ordered shared care, my ex simply stopped allowing overnight stays. Not only did I lose half my time with my children..."

Share Your Story

Your experience matters. Every account strengthens our case to Parliament. All submissions are reviewed before publication.

⚠ Submission Disclaimer Your story must be truthful and based on your own experience. Do not include names of other parties, case references, or contact details. Submissions are reviewed before publication.

Join the Movement

Sign the petition & add your voice

We are building a formal parliamentary petition to present directly to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. When you register below you are automatically added as a signatory. Every name, every postcode, every constituency — it all counts when we place this in front of Parliament.

Our goal is 50,000 signatories before the Government's CMS calculation consultation closes. With enough backing, this becomes a matter of parliamentary urgency — not just another ignored complaint. The petition document can be downloaded and presented to any MP or Select Committee.

Petition Statement

We call on the UK Government to urgently reform the Child Maintenance Service by reviewing the 12-hour education threshold, addressing the financial incentive to deny contact, basing calculations on net rather than gross income, introducing a proper financial means assessment, and ensuring CMS maladministration is independently investigated with legally enforceable duty of care standards.

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The system is broken. We demand change.