Earlier this month, the government released its response to the House of Lords Public Services Committee’s Reforming the Child Maintenance Service report, detailing which of the recommendations it will take forward. 

The Committee’s report, published in October 2025, followed an inquiry into the barriers to making child maintenance arrangements through the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) and how arrangements can be more effectively enforced. As part of this, the Committee gathered evidence from a range of individuals, experts, and organisations to inform their findings and recommendations.  

What did the Committee recommend? 

The report identified three main areas where CMS reform is needed:  

• fairer and more transparent calculations 

• stronger enforcement against non-payment 

• better communication 

Several recommendations reflected calls from Gingerbread and single-parent campaigners, including stronger protections for victim-survivors of domestic abuse, clearer communication channels, and closer collaboration between government departments. We were also pleased to see our evidence and contributions from single parents referenced throughout the report. 

For a full recap of the recommendations, read our previous news and views. 

What was the government’s response? 

We are pleased that the government has accepted several recommendations from the Committee, including a number that reflect Gingerbread’s asks. In particular, we welcome that the government has committed to providing trauma-informed training and clinical supervision for CMS staff, as well as introducing legislation for Administrative Liability Orders (ALO) and speeding up the CMS’s complaint, appeal, and resolution processes. We were also pleased to see that the recently published Child Poverty Strategy includes key reforms to the CMS. 

It’s also encouraging that the government has partially accepted recommendations to work with HMRC on real-time data sharing, promote and strengthen the variation scheme, improve investigations into paying parents’ earnings, and introduce a better digital communication system. Taken together, these changes could significantly improve how the CMS operates.  

However, the government needs to go further to make sure these reforms deliver real change for separated families. For example, the current 25% income change threshold for recalculations is too high and can leave maintenance payments out of touch with paying parents’ earnings. While the government has said it will review how child maintenance is calculated, the consultation was due to be published last year and, so far, no updated timeline has been made public. Similarly, it is unclear what the timeline is for the implementation of ALOs, which will allow for swifter enforcement action against non-compliance. 

We are also disappointed that the government rejected the recommendation to implement the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act. This legislation received Royal Assent in 2023 and would allow victim-survivors entering the CMS to move straight onto Collect and Pay without using Direct Pay – a change Gingerbread has called for and one that would offer vital protection to victim-survivors. 

While the forthcoming consolidation of the CMS will remove the Direct Pay service completely, the government has indicated that this will not take place for at least two years, leaving victim-survivors without adequate protection in the meantime. Gingerbread’s Fix the CMS report indicates that victim-survivors make up a large proportion of the CMS’s customer base, and we know that Direct Pay can expose them to ongoing abuse, especially as the CMS does not monitor this service for compliance. 

It is also disappointing that the government rejected the Committee’s recommendation to establish a target maximum waiting time for calls made to the CMS and to publish quarterly CMS telephony data. Communication challenges, particularly the length of time required to get through to the CMS by phone, were a key source of frustration for both paying parents and parents with care who contributed to our Fix the CMS report; this issue continues to undermine confidence in the service. 

What’s next? 

We’ll continue to engage with the government to make sure reforms to the CMS reflect the needs of single-parent families. We’re also looking ahead to the forthcoming consultation on child maintenance calculations and will respond once it’s launched, encouraging single parents to have their say too. 

In the coming months, we’ll be publishing new research on domestic abuse and the CMS, outlining where the system must do better to safeguard and support victim-survivors. To stay up to date with our campaigns and policy work, join our mailing list.