Child Maintenance Service (CMS)

3. Miss B complains that CMS:

• closed her case without collecting the outstanding arrears and leaving her without access to her records

4. Miss B tells us the events described have caused her significant stress and anxiety over a long period of time

5. Miss B would like to receive the arrears she is owed which she says is £6,300. She would also like an apology from CMS and a consolatory payment to account for the impact on her over the five years this has been ongoing.

6. Miss B would also like CMS to change its policy on closing cases while there are outstanding arrears.

7. Miss B received child maintenance payments directly from the Non-Resident Parent (NRP - the parent who does not have their child living with them) from September 2017.

8. In September and October 2020, Miss B contacted CMS to say she had not receive payments that were due in those months and had been receiving less than she should have since May 2020. CMS then looked at moving the case to Collect and Pay, where it manages the collection of the child maintenance and then passes on the monies collected to the parent with care.

9. A new payment schedule was issued in November 2020 to account for the NRP’s income increase. The change was backdated to March 2020 and a new payment plan issued to the NRP which included an amount towards arrears that had built up.

10. In January 2021, the NRP told CMS that the child was no longer in full-time education. CMS declined the claim and the mandatory reconsideration (MR - this process allows you to challenge the decision made by the CMS) so the NRP lodged an appeal with the Courts and Tribunal Service (the Tribunal).

11. A new payment plan was issued as part of the annual review in September 2021.

12. In October 2021, the Tribunal issued a judgement on the NRP’s appeal and told CMS it needed to take specific actions on the case. CMS closed the case at the beginning of November 2021 and backdated the decision to November 2020. Miss B wrote to it to say she still had outstanding arrears and wanted those to be collected.

13. She then asked for access to her online case, but CMS were unable to provide that as the case was closed. Instead it sent her copies of statements relating to her case. She complained to CMS that it had made its calculations and subsequent case closure on the basis of what she was supposed to receive rather than what she actually received.

14. After completing the complaints process in April 2022 she was directed to complain to the Independent Complaint Examiner (the ICE). It replied in July 2023 and found that CMS had followed its guidance in applying the Tribunal decision which had not mentioned arrears. It also found that CMS did not fully investigate the reports of shortfalls and said that it had now agreed to do so. The ICE directed Miss B to our Office if she was not satisfied with the findings.

15. Miss B brought her complaint to our office in February 2024. When we considered the complaint, we saw some evidence that CMS may not have calculated the outstanding shortfall correctly and it agreed to look at that again. It did so but Miss B remain dissatisfied and returned to us in September 2025.

CMS closed her case and left her without access to records

18. Our Principles of Good Administration say that public bodies must act within the law and with regard for the rights of those concerned. Our Complaint Standards explain that if someone complains and the matter can be remedied quickly, the body should ‘carry out actions to put things right’

19. In October 2021, a Tribunal found that the Miss B’s child had left full time education, and it instructed CMS to close the maintenance case from the beginning of November 2020. This is because the NRP no longer had liability for ongoing child maintenance. CMS did so. This is in line with our Principles so there are no indications anything went seriously wrong.

20. We acknowledge that the frustrating part for Miss B was that given the case was closed it meant she had no way of viewing the records that were held on the case. We are pleased to see CMS gave Miss B copies of her records when she asked for them. Although this was not the instantaneous access she had been used to, it still provided Miss B with the information she sought. This is in line with our Complaint Standards and we will not consider it further.

Failed to collect outstanding arrears

21. Miss B told us that there was a shortfall on several payments in 2020 and 2021 and despite providing CMS with bank statements and other evidence, it failed to collect the outstanding arrears.

22. Our Principles of Good Administration say public bodies should behave helpfully and do what they say they will do.

23. The Child Maintenance Decision Maker’s Guide (CMDMG) says:

15019 The CMS will not take enforcement action to collect arrears while the direct pay service type is in place… However, arrears can be added to the payment schedule… if the case is on collect and pay.’

24. When Miss B reported to CMS that arrears had accrued, CMS began the process of investigating the claimed arrears with the intention of moving the case to Collect and Pay to both recoup arrears and ensure payments were being made going forward.

25. The evidence we have seen shows that the first time Miss B made CMS aware that there had been missed payments and shortfalls was in early August 2020. Miss B told us that she contacted CMS by phone on several occasions during 2020. We have reviewed CMS’ records and have not seen a record of any calls on its system during that period. She said she updated the portal too. Unfortunately, that information is no longer available on the CMS system.

26. While we are not disputing Miss B’s account, the evidence available shows that the date she is first recorded to have reported the shortfall is mid-August 2020. In its calculations CMS refers to late-July 2020 as that was the date of the most recent child maintenance payment not made in full.

27. The CMDMG says:

15022 “Note: there is no legal limit on how far back a breakdown of direct pay can be retrospectively applied. In general, DMs (decision makers) only need to consider retrospectively applying payments back to the last annual review. However, where exceptionally a PWC (parent with care - the parent who receives the maintenance payment) asks CMS to pursue arrears which accrued prior to the last annual review, the exceptional nature of that request, including any reasons the PWC may have for not reporting the missed payments sooner, must be considered. DMs must consult their Team Leader where such requests are made.”

28. As explained above, CMS can consider underpayments prior to the most recent annual review (in this case is September 2020) or most recent report of underpayments however this is only permitted in exceptional circumstances, which CMS tells us it has not seen evidence of in Miss B’s case. It is not our role to investigate how much Miss B should receive or calculate maintenance payments or arrears. We have looked to see whether CMS has provided payments as per its obligation. With this in mind, we looked at the figures both CMS and Miss B provided.

29. CMS told us that the following payments should have been made to Miss B:

• 28 July 2020 – £1,500.13 • 28 August 2020 – £1,500.13 • 28 September 2020 – £1,500.13 • 28 October 2020 – £928.01

Total: £5428.40

The actual payments Miss B received were:

• 28 July 2020 – £1,500.13 • 28 August 2020 – £1,500.13 • 28 September 2020 – £0 • 28 October 2020 – £0 • 2 November 2020 – £928.01 • 30 November 2020 – £1,207.50

Total: £5135.77

30. There were two missed payments in September and October 2020. This must have been frustrating for Miss B. Although this happened, we note the payments made in November 2020 were for the period after the case was closed. A review of the figures shows an outstanding underpayment balance of £292.63.

31. In January 2025, CMS agreed to look again at the child maintenance payments when our Office noted some potential discrepancies based on the evidence we had seen. It did so and determined there was an outstanding arrears balance of £292.89. In July 2025, the NRP paid that balance. This shows CMS acted in line with our Principles and the CMDMG.

32. It is clear that Miss B has experienced a period of stress and frustration when trying to get an accurate account of the arrears she was owed. We are sorry to hear that was the case. We hope that our decision and the explanation of the payments provided by CMS goes some way to ending that frustration. As CMS acted in line with relevant guidance, there are no indications that anything went seriously wrong and we will not take any further action on this complaint.

1. We have carefully considered Miss B’s complaint about CMS. We are sorry to hear of her disappointment when she was told there were no outstanding child maintenance arrears owed to her. We appreciate these events have left her feeling upset and frustrated.

2. We have considered the evidence available to us and found that CMS acted in line with its guidance and our Principles when it closed the case and when it recalculated and collected the outstanding arrears. This means we will take no further action. We explain in more detail below how we reached this decision.