Modernising the Child Maintenance Service

The DWP has opened a consultation into modernising the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). The consultation is open to CMS customers and members of the general public.

The proposals under consultation include:

• unearned income information held by HMRC to be included in CMS calculations alongside paying parents’ earned income;

• evidential requirements for self-employed parents to be eased where a change that has breached the income tolerance has been reported;

• small volumes of low value debt to be extinguished where the value of the debt is substantially less than the cost of collecting it;

• arrears to be extinguished where child maintenance has been deducted from a parent’s earnings where their employer has gone into administration and the DWP is unable to recover the outstanding arrears from the trustee handling the companies’ insolvency;

• all CMS notifications to be sent, received and accessed digitally;

• the following organisations to provide information when requested to do so in a timely manner: private pension providers, academy proprietors, the Motor Insurers’ Bureau and all types of companies that offer, promote or sell investment management services or facilitate share trading.

The consultation closes on 6 August 2021. If you would like to take a look the link is here.