3. Mr A complains that CMS delayed informing him that his child maintenance payments were due to end in September 2018. He says that by the time CMS contacted him in February 2020, he had made payments unnecessarily. He also complains that CMS refused to reimburse the money. Mr A tells us the issues caused him financial loss.
4. Mr A wants CMS to reimburse the payments he made.
5. Mr A and his ex-partner have a child who was born in 1999. Mr A did not live with the child. On 21 February 2017, CMS contacted Mr A to say he was liable to pay £61.25 a week in child maintenance and that the case would be reviewed in a year. He began making payments.
6. In September 2018, the child was no longer eligible for child benefit as they left full time education. Child benefit is administered by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) and it should have notified CMS that the benefit had ended. In turn, CMS should have closed the case as child maintenance eligibility would have ended too. But the case stayed open, and Mr A continued making payments. CMS did not carry out any reviews of the case or alter the payments Mr A was making.
7. Mr A says that in December 2018, prior to his child’s 19th birthday, he contacted CMS to ask whether he still needed to pay child maintenance. He says CMS told him to continue making payments. Mr A says he also complained to CMS in March 2019 about general poor service he had received but never heard back. It seems at that point, CMS closed the child maintenance case. It appears this way because 14 months later (May 2020), in line with its data retention policy, CMS deleted all of its records in relation to Mr A. CMS did not notify Mr A or his ex-partner that it had closed the child maintenance case, so Mr A continued making payments.
8. On 20 February 2020, CMS wrote to Mr A and explained that his child no longer qualified for child maintenance as of 1 September 2018 as they had left education. It said he did not need to make any further payments from that date. CMS does not know what prompted it to send this letter.
9. Mr A immediately stopped making payments. He complained to CMS sometime later and asked for reimbursement of unnecessary child maintenance payments he made between September 2018 and February 2020. CMS refused to reimburse Mr A because he had not asked for it within 30 days of being told the case was closed.
13. Mr A complains that CMS delayed informing him that his child maintenance payments were due to end in September 2018. He also complains that CMS refused to reimburse the money when he learned he had made payments unnecessarily.
14. Our Principles of Good Administration say that organisations should give people information and, if appropriate, advice that is clear, accurate, complete, relevant, and timely. They should aim to ensure that customers are clear about their entitlements, about what they can and cannot expect from the public body and about their own responsibilities.
15. Child maintenance covers how a child’s living costs will be paid when one of the parents does not live with the child. Parents must have a child maintenance arrangement if their child is under 16 (or under 20 if they are still in full-time education).
16. Once Mr A’s child reached 16 and was no longer in full-time education, Mr A was no longer responsible for paying maintenance. In line with our Principles, CMS should have closed the case and told Mr A about this.
17. CMS told Mr A on 20 February 2020 that he no longer needed to make child maintenance payments as of 1 September 2018. But Mr A had already made payments for that period. He complained to CMS about this.
18. In response to Mr A’s complaint, CMS told Mr A it had no records of him on its system. It signposted him to ICE.
19. ICE said that Mr A’s child was no longer eligible to receive child maintenance payments from 1 September 2018. The reason Mr A continued making payments is because CMS did not inform him of the change in a timely manner. The report stated that as CMS had destroyed its records, it was no longer possible to say whether HMRC notified it in September 2018 that child benefit payments had ended. Equally, it was not possible to know whether Mr A’s ex-partner had reported a change in their child’s circumstances at any point. There is no independent evidence to substantiate Mr A’s alleged call with CMS in December 2018.
20. ICE went on to say that as CMS destroyed its records in May 2020, it may have closed the child maintenance case in March 2019. This is because CMS’s data retention policy required it to delete records on closed cases after 14 months. But in the absence of any records, it is not possible to confirm the exact date.
21. In any event, ICE found that CMS should have notified Mr A much sooner that his child maintenance case had closed. Had this happened, it is likely Mr A would have stopped making payments earlier. That is the action he took when he learned about the closure of the case in February 2020. ICE recommended that DWP consider reimbursement of the payments Mr A made between September 2018 and February 2020. CMS accepted ICE’s findings and recommendations but as we go on to explain, CMS refused to reimburse Mr A.
22. We agree with ICE’s findings and are satisfied that CMS did not act in line with our Principles when it failed to tell Mr A he no longer needed to pay maintenance. We find this fell so far short of what should have happened that it amounted to a failing.
23. Having seen evidence of a failing, we next considered what, if any, impact this had on Mr A. Given that he stopped paying maintenance as soon as he found out he no longer needed to, we are satisfied that, on balance, this is what would have happened had CMS told him about this at the right time. We therefore find that he suffered a financial loss of £4,655.
24. We next considered what CMS has done to put things right.
25. CMS’s reimbursement principles say that an individual should ask it for reimbursement of overpaid child maintenance within one month of it notifying them of closing their child maintenance case. In this case, CMS notified Mr A on 20 February 2020.
26. Once Mr A realised he had overpaid following CMS’s letter, he asked CMS to reimburse him the money. The exact date he did this is unknown as CMS deleted all of its records in May 2020 and Mr A no longer holds a copy of the letter he sent. CMS said both parties accept it was outside of the one-month time limit. For that reason, and in line with its reimbursement principles, CMS refused to reimburse Mr A.
27. However, it is key to note that at no point did CMS make Mr A aware that he had to ask for reimbursement within one month. This information is not easily accessible online or via other means.
28. We asked CMS how Mr A would have known to ask for reimbursement within one month given it did not tell him about this. CMS told us that the letter it sent to Mr A in February 2020 told him to contact CMS if he had any questions. CMS said at that point, it would have told Mr A about the time limit.
29. However, there is no guarantee that would have happened, and Mr A did not telephone CMS. It does not seem appropriate for CMS to rely on this as a means to notify customers of their rights and responsibilities. This is not in line with our Principles.
30. We do not consider that CMS gave Mr A information that was relevant to him at an appropriate time. We have seen no reason as to why CMS did not tell Mr A in the letter in February 2020 that he had one month to apply for reimbursement. If it did, this situation would likely have been avoided.
31. Furthermore, our Principles state that if applying regulations or procedures strictly would lead to an unfair result for an individual, the organisation should seek to address the unfairness. It seems that Mr A may have been placed in an unfair situation, in that he overpaid child maintenance through no fault of his own but was then met with a one-month time limit for reimbursement, which he had no knowledge of. We have made recommendations for CMS to put things right.
1. We have found that Child Maintenance Service (CMS) failed to notify Mr A in a timely manner that he no longer needed to make child maintenance payments. This meant he made unnecessary payments which caused him financial loss. CMS then refused to reimburse those payments on the basis that he did not request the money back within one month. We believe this was an unfair position for CMS to take as it did not make Mr A aware of the time limit, so he did not know he had to request reimbursement within a certain time.
2. Therefore, we have upheld this complaint and made recommendations for CMS to apologise to Mr A and improve its service. We have also recommended that CMS reimburse Mr A £4,655 for the unnecessary payments he made.
32. In considering our recommendations, we have referred to our Principles for Remedy. These state that where poor service or maladministration has led to injustice or hardship, the organisation responsible should take steps to put things right.
33. Our Principles say that public organisations should look for continuous improvement, and should use the lessons learnt from complaints to make sure they do not repeat maladministration or poor service. In line with this, we recommend that within four weeks of the date of this final report, CMS should take steps to improve its service and communication so that it makes service users aware of the one-month time limit where they have overpaid.
34. Our Principles also state that public organisations should put things right and, if possible, return the person affected to the position they would have been in if the poor service had not occurred. CMS should, therefore, pay Mr A £4,655 to reimburse him for the unnecessary payments he made. CMS should also apologise to Mr A for not making him aware sooner that he did not need to continue making child maintenance payments. It should also apologise that it did not make him aware he needed to ask for reimbursement within one month and that this prevented him from getting his money back in the way he should have. It should do this within four weeks of the date of this report.