Child Maintenance: a new compliance and arrears strategy

This consultation is to inform the government’s new child maintenance compliance and arrears strategy, which we aim to publish in 2018.

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

The proposals include:

• improvements to child maintenance calculations and new compliance measures
• stronger collection and enforcement measures
• a request for further ideas on collection and enforcement
• how to deal with the historic debt that accrued on Child Support Agency (CSA) cases

The consultation is open to:

• voluntary and community sector organisations
• clients of both the CSA and CMS schemes
• members of the general public