Child Maintenance Service (CMS)

3. Ms L complains that CSA and CMS failed to use their available powers to secure the child maintenance owed to her by her ex-husband since 1993. She says they did not chase the debt promptly and ignored her communications. Ms L says that CMS admitted poor service and offered her £300 in compensation; however, it did not explain why it failed to place a charge on her ex-husband's property, risking a third of the child maintenance debt being unrecoverable.

4. Ms L says she has effectively brought up her daughter on her own with very little support from her ex-husband. She says this has resulted in financial difficulty, as well as stress and anxiety caused by the lack of communication and action by the CSA and CMS over the years.

5. Ms L seeks an explanation from the CMS for why it has not used available enforcement action to secure the entire debt. She also seeks compensation from both organisations for the portion that may be unrecoverable if her ex-husband stops paying.

6. Ms L applied for child maintenance from her ex-husband in 1993, following their separation. The CSA, which was responsible for the management at the time, before it was later replaced by CMS, registered her case, and sent a maintenance enquiry form to her ex-husband in January 1994.

7. Between 1995 and 2000 Ms L’s ex-husband made some sporadic payments. In 2000 the CSA was able to secure regular payments through a deduction from earnings order (DEO), but these payments ceased by September 2001.

8. By 2003, Ms L’s ex-husband owed her over £10,000 in unpaid child maintenance. However, the CSA suspended collection efforts, as Ms L’s ex-husband was in receipt of benefits, which meant it could not take any collection action at that time. No further steps were taken before the case was officially closed in 2011 when Ms L’s daughter turned 19.

9. In 2019, the CSA contacted Ms L to confirm whether she still wished to pursue the unpaid maintenance. She confirmed she did, and the case was transferred to CMS.

10. Unfortunately, despite CMS’s involvement, it was unsuccessful in taking further enforcement action. CMS attempted to put in place DEOs in 2019 and 2020, both of which were unsuccessful. Further enforcement action was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In December 2020 CMS then applied to the courts for a liability order to secure part of the debt.

11. CMS instigated enforcement action on 16 December 2020 and applied for a liability order concerning the unpaid child maintenance. However, the initial application covered the full debt owed by Ms L’s ex-husband, rather than just the debt accrued since July 2000, as required by the statute of limitations. This caused a two-month delay, at which point CMS made a new application for a liability order of £3,048.92, which covered the period from 7 July 2000 to 15 November 2011. The first court hearing was cancelled at the request of Ms L’s ex-partner, and so the liability order was considered and granted at a hearing on 8 November 2021.

12. Although the liability order was granted in November 2021, bailiff action in early 2022 was unable to recover the debt. It was not until July 2022 that CMS began receiving weekly payments of £55 from Ms L’s ex-husband.

13. Ms L’s MP contacted CMS on her behalf in 2022, and CMS acknowledged that it had delivered poor service and offered her £100 in compensation. Ms L remained dissatisfied and contacted the Independent case Examiner (ICE), which is the next step in the complaints process.

14. The ICE upheld Ms L’s complaint as it recognised delays in enforcement action and recommended a further payment of £200. Ms L approached our Office as she does not believe this puts right the impact of CMS’s mistakes.

CSA and CMS enforcement action between 1993 – 2019

17. By law, as set out in the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, we cannot consider a complaint unless it is raised with an MP within one year from the day the person affected became aware they had reason to complain. We may only set that time limit aside if we can see good reason to do so. To reach a decision we consider the time taken for the organisation to consider the complaint and the complainant’s reasons for the delay.

18. Ms L complains about the lack of enforcement action on her case from 1993. We can see that she was aware at the time of those events that she was unhappy with the service she was receiving from CMS.

19. By 2003, Ms L’s ex-husband was £10,000 in arrears, and the child maintenance case with CSA was ultimately closed in 2011. In our view, Ms L was aware by 2011 and the closure of her case that the CSA had not taken the action she had hoped for in the 18 years that her case had been open, and so it was open to her to complain about those matters at that time. As she did not contact an MP for support on those matters until 2022, her complaint about those matters is outside of our time limit by at least nine years.

20. We asked Ms L why she did not raise this complaint with an MP sooner. She says she was not aware she could make a formal complaint at the time until a friend advised her in 2022.

21. We understand Ms L feels very frustrated about these events. We can see that it was open to her to explore the options for raising her concerns at any time from 1993 onwards, or in 2011 at the very latest, and information about the CMS complaints process is freely available in the public domain. It was also open to her to tell CMS she was unhappy with its service and ask how to raise her concerns. Ms L has also told us this was a difficult time for her personally, and we can see it was open to her to seek free advocacy services like the Citizen Advice Bureau (CAB).

22. With this in mind, we are unable to look at Ms L’s complaints about the actions of the CSA and CMS between 1993 and 2019 as they fall outside of our time limit and, as we are not able to put the time limit aside, we will take no further action.

CMS enforcement action between 2019 – 2023

23. In 2019, CSA made contact with Ms L, and from this point on we can see that she was in regular contact with CMS following the transfer of her child maintenance case. As such, although she did not contact an MP for assistance until 2022, we can set aside our time limit for these parts of her complaint.

24. Ms L is particularly concerned that from 2019 CMS failed to take effective enforcement action to recover the unpaid debt from her ex-husband. Although CMS made attempts to recover the amounts via DEOs and eventually applied for a liability order, Ms L says it did not pursue other available options as it should have done, such as placing a charge on her ex-husband’s property. She says this resulted in substantial delays in securing the full debt and the risk of some of the debt being unrecoverable.

25. We can see that Ms L learned that some of the arrears were not enforceable after CMS applied for a liability order £3,048.92 in 2021. We understand that Ms L is frustrated as this is £7,540.72 less than the total arrears.

26. Therefore, she asked why a charging order was never applied to her ex-partner’s property, to secure the debt. Given that our time limit prevents us from looking at any action prior to 2019, we have looked at the steps CMS took from that time onwards.

27. We can see that CMS pursued action from 2019, including requesting a liability order and attempting enforcement action which was unsuccessful. Irrespective of delays to this action caused by COVID-19, which caused unavoidable disruption to public services nationally, we can see CMS made some mistakes in its handling of the liability order application. CMS applied for the full arrears, which it could not do due to the statute of limitations. This error meant CMS had to reapply, which allowed it to then secure a liability order for £3,048.92.

28. We understand that Ms L feels that a charging order should have been pursued as part of the enforcement action. We can see that a liability order must be obtained before a charging order can be considered, as outlined in CMS’s ‘DMG: Collections and Enforcement’ guidelines. As previously explained, we can only look at actions from 2019 onwards and are aware that CMS obtained a liability order in 2021. We understand that CMS has secured weekly payments from Ms. L’s ex-husband starting in 2022 and remains compliant with these payments. For this reason, there was nothing to suggest it needed to go on to request a charging order and so the evidence available to us indicates it has acted in line with the steps set out in the DMG.

29. In light of the above, we agree with the ICE that there are indications of failings by CMS in progressing enforcement as it made mistakes in the handling of the liability order. This is not in line with the DWP’s ‘Customer Charter,’ which says DWP, and its agencies (which includes CMS) will:

• ‘do what we say we will do • try to understand your circumstances • follow processes correctly’

30. Nor is it in line with our Principles of Good Administration, which say ‘Public bodies should behave helpfully, dealing with people promptly, within reasonable timescales.’

31. We can see that this error caused an avoidable delay in pursuing the maintenance due to Ms L, which clearly caused her frustration and distress. We have therefore thought about what it has done to put things right.

32. The ICE recommended that CMS offer Ms L £200 as a consolatory payment in addition to the £100 already offered to address its service failures in delaying enforcement action and providing poor service. This means that CMS has agreed to provide her with an apology and £300 in remedy. Having considered DWP’s ‘Financial redress for maladministration: staff guide,’ and our own ‘Guidance on Financial Remedy,’ we can see this is in line with remedies provided for similar cases of frustration and distress.

33. Ms L tells us she would like a financial remedy to cover the amount of child maintenance that is no longer recoverable from her ex-husband. We have not seen anything to indicate the mistake we have identified, i.e. the delays caused by CMS’s poor handling of the liability order, led to the loss of that amount in maintenance, so we have not seen anything to suggest DWP should provide such a remedy.

34. We can see that the £300 offered now puts right the frustration of CMS delays caused between 2019 and 2023, in line with DWP’s own guidance and our ‘Guidance on Financial Remedy’. With this in mind, we will take no further action.

35. The evidence available to us indicates that CMS made a mistake in its handling of Ms L’s case but has already taken appropriate steps to put things right. As such, we will take no further action. We understand Ms L remains frustrated by CMS’s handling of her case, and we hope this statement clearly explains how we reached our decision.

1. We have carefully considered Ms L’s complaint about the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) and Child Support Agency (CSA). We are sorry to learn the reasons for Ms L’s complaint, and the financial difficulty she describes while raising her daughter. It is clear from what she has told us that she remains very frustrated and upset by the service she has received from CSA and CMS.

2. After reviewing the evidence provided by Ms L and CMS, we can see that although CMS made a mistake it has already done enough to put right the impact that error caused. We are not able to give any view on the actions of the CSA, nor CMS prior to 2019, due to our one-year time limit. As such, we have decided to take no further action, and we will explain our reasons in this statement.