Child Maintenance: modernising and improving our service

The proposals in this consultation seek to strengthen the current Child Maintenance Service (CMS), which was introduced in 2012.

The proposals would enable:

• unearned income 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
  • we are 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

This consultation is open to voluntary and community sector organisations, as well as CMS customers and members of the general public.

This consultation applies to England, Wales and Scotland, although we welcome comments from across the United Kingdom.