Britain’s child maintenance scandal deserves a full parliamentary inquiry

TODAY I ANNOUNCED that Reform UK is calling for a full and thorough Parliamentary Inquiry into the Child Maintenance Service, following ongoing warnings about poor safeguards and a lack of accountability over a 30-year period.

For too long, paying parents have said their concerns have been dismissed. The growing body of evidence, official audit findings and departmental disclosures now demands independent scrutiny of this scandal.

Failed families deserve transparency, accountability and a system that puts the welfare of children and the family unit at the heart of every decision.

There should be full transparency over the private contractors used in child maintenance enforcement, including their procurement, oversight and financial incentives.

A Parliamentary Inquiry would investigate the accuracy of arrears still subject to enforcement from the time of the predecessor organisation – the Child Support Agency – while examining evidence of alleged calculation errors and disputed debts.

Many parents complain they had no opportunity to challenge the accuracy of CMS calculations before enforcement action was taken.

Back in 2011, Noel Shanahan, then Commissioner and Chief Executive of the Child Maintenance and Enforcement Commission, told the House of Commons Work and Pensions Committee that the widely quoted £3.8 billion arrears figure contained “severe question marks”.

Shanahan said the former CSA used interim maintenance assessments as a lever to obtain financial information from non-resident parents and that, these had, in certain cases, been inflated by roughly 300 per cent.

Between 2020 and 2022 alone there were 4,959 reported paying parent deaths

Those inflated assessments were then carried into the historic arrears balance, meaning the published debt was itself materially inflated. Historic arrears have continued to be pursued years later.

An inquiry would also investigate the tragedy of parental deaths and suicides where families believe the Child Maintenance Service may have been a contributory factor.

Freedom of Information disclosures obtained from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that between 2016 and 2023 there were 8,772 reported paying parent deaths. Between 2020 and 2022 alone there were 4,959 reported paying parent deaths.

Reform is now calling for a review of safeguarding procedures, welfare protections and internal review processes, alongside the prospect of new laws to guard against future failings. The National Audit Office has repeatedly qualified the Child Maintenance Client Funds Account because of uncertainty surrounding historic arrears balances inherited from legacy schemes.

Those qualifications have continued for years, demonstrating concerns over the accuracy and completeness of historic debt that have never been fully resolved. We are calling for full accountability for a scandal which has likely cost thousands of lives over several decades.