4. Miss U complains the level of compensation CMS paid her is not enough to recognise the problems she experienced in getting maintenance from her ex-partner.
5. She says CMS’s actions caused her financial loss as well as stress, upset and anxiety.
6. Miss U wants more compensation to equal the cost of the unpaid maintenance on her account.
7. This complaint relates mainly to the maintenance claim Miss U has for her daughter. She has another maintenance claim for her son, but this relates to a different paying parent and plays only a small part in her complaint. Where we refer to ‘the paying parent’ or ‘ex-partner’, this should be understood as relating to her daughter’s father. We will refer to Miss U’s son’s father as ‘the other paying parent’.
8. Miss U opened a case for child maintenance in April 2018. The paying parent did not make payments to her so CMS placed him on its Collect and Pay scheme where it would manage payments at a cost to both parties. When CMS also did not receive payments, it enforced a Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO) in August. This meant the required maintenance payment would be taken from the paying parent’s salary and sent to CMS by his employer.
9. Miss U received payments via the DEO between August 2018 and February 2019, when the paying parent changed employer. A new DEO was set up for the new employer and Miss U received maintenance payments from April to November 2019 inclusive.
10. In December, CMS agreed to the paying parent’s request to cancel the DEO and allow him to make payments to it instead. Although this was set up, the paying parent did not make any payment so in March 2020 CMS set up a new DEO to start from May. Although the May payment was not made, Miss U did receive payments in June and July. The paying parent’s employer did not make payments in line with the DEO in August. A nominal payment was made in September because the paying parent stopped working there during that month.
11. CMS set up another DEO with the paying parent’s new employer in October, but Miss U did not receive any payments from this. The paying parent stopped working there in March 2021 and was told to set up a standing order for payment. This did not happen.
12. A further DEO for the paying parent’s newest employer was set up in April. No payment was received in May and the June, July and August payments were late (received in July and twice in September respectively). The September and October payments were received together.
13. DEO payments have continued to be received and paid to Miss U since this time.
14. The other paying parent, who made direct payments to Miss U for their child, asked CMS for Miss U’s bank details in October 2021. He did this because he had changed bank accounts and not kept a record of this information.
15. CMS did not act on this request appropriately and it did not pass this information on until December. This led to November’s payment not being made.
18. Before we decide if we should investigate a complaint in more detail, we look at whether there are signs the organisation has got something wrong. We do this by comparing what should have happened with what did happen. We have done this and have not seen any signs that CMS got anything wrong when deciding on how much to pay Miss U.
19. Miss U explained her dealings with CMS have caused much emotional and financial hardship. She does not think the £250 CMS paid her, which ICE thought was an appropriate amount, is enough.
20. We are only able to consider CMS’s actions in response to the paying parents’ actions. It is not our intention to try and minimise the impact this matter had on Miss U.
21. There is no dispute that there has been an issue with inconsistent payments by the paying parent. It is clear that CMS has taken steps to get payment from him many times.
22. When a claim is first made, we would expect CMS to allow the paying parent to make payments directly. This has no charges and requires the least amount of input from the organisation.
23. If there becomes a history of non-compliance with direct payments, we expect CMS to move to Collect and Pay. This means it acts as an intermediary between the parents and there is a charge. The paying parent pays an additional sum on top of their maintenance liability and the receiving parent gets a slightly reduced sum. The charges recognise CMS’s involvement in getting payment and passing this on.
24. If a paying parent still does not pay, CMS can then take steps to enforce payment. A commonly used method is to get a DEO. This is a requirement for a parent’s employer to send the specified sum to CMS directly from the paying parent’s wage.
25. In this case, we can see that CMS acted very quickly in its attempts to get payment for Miss U. She opened a case in April 2018 and started to receive payments in August via DEO, after attempts at both direct payment and Collect and Pay were unsuccessful. We would not expect a DEO to be made any sooner than this.
26. Between August 2018 and November 2019 Miss U continued to receive payments each month via DEO, except for March. This was because the paying parent changed employer, meaning a new DEO needed to be established with his new employer. There was no error or failing on CMS’s part here.
27. The ‘Unlikely to Pay’ chapter of the PLDMG explains that once a paying parent has successfully made six months of payments by an enforced method (such as a DEO) they are ‘eligible for a compliance opportunity’. This allows the paying parent to show they will make a further six months of payments by a non-enforced method (in this case, Collect and Pay) before being given an opportunity to move to direct payment.
28. As Miss U’s ex-partner met these criteria in December 2019, CMS was correct in agreeing to the cancellation of the DEO. Although we recognise Miss U’s frustration with this decision, it was made in line with CMS’s policy and we are not critical of it for this.
29. The paying parent did not use this opportunity for compliance and failed to make any payment. CMS acted at the beginning of March 2020 to address this and set up a new DEO to start in May. Again, this was a quick response to the paying parent’s actions.
30. Miss U received payments in line with the DEO in June and July but not in May or August. The lack of payments was because of the paying parent’s employer not meeting their responsibilities. Again, this is not something that CMS was responsible for.
31. The paying parent left his employer in September 2020, meaning Miss U got a part payment to reflect the decreased salary that month. CMS took quick action once again and set up a new DEO with the ex-partner’s new employer in October, where he worked until March 2021.
32. No payments were made to CMS during this time. Again, this was not something CMS was responsible for – the paying parent’s employer at that time failed to comply with their requirement to enforce the DEO. CMS took action to address this, although this was not something it was able to give as much attention to as it would have liked because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on its workload. We accept this was the case and do not criticise it as a result.
33. When the paying parent left this job in March 2021, CMS told him to set up a direct debit for payment. He did not. This led to CMS instructing his new employer to enforce another DEO in April 2021. Payments were received for the June to October period inclusive, although some of these were late.
34. The DEO has continued to be kept to and Miss U is still receiving payments in this way.
35. To summarise, CMS did not do something wrong when it allowed the paying parent the opportunity to make payments via Collect and Pay in December 2019. Payments were inconsistent after this time, but this was mainly due to the paying parent changing jobs often and CMS having to arrange new DEOs with each new employer.
36. CMS responded appropriately when the DEO was not complied with by the ex-partner’s employer(s). We have no doubt that this was difficult and frustrating for Miss U, but we cannot and do not consider CMS to be at fault.
37. CMS took two months to get Miss U’s bank details and pass them to the other paying parent. We acknowledge this caused one month’s payment to be missed.
38. CMS’s guidance ‘Financial redress for maladministration’ sets out how it should make consolatory payments. The guidance notes that a payment of this kind can be made ‘where the customer has suffered injustice or hardship arising from maladministration’. Section 5.11 explains that such payments usually range between £50 and £500.
39. The £250 Miss U got falls within this range. It is reasonable to say CMS acted in line with the relevant guidance.
40. Although we know this is in middle of the specified range and that Miss U is unhappy with this, we do not think a failure to recommend a higher payment amounts to a mistake by CMS.
1. We have carefully considered Miss U’s complaint about Child Maintenance Service (CMS). We are sorry to hear about the frustrating experience she has had.
2. We think the £250 payment CMS has already provided is reasonable and an appropriate recognition of its mistakes. Most of the problems Miss U faced were because of her ex-partner’s and their employer’s actions. CMS mostly responded quicky and in the way we would expect.
3. While there is no doubt that Miss U has received inconsistent payments for her daughter’s maintenance, much of this was not due to CMS and it was outside of its control.