Today we published a joint briefing exploring the experiences of victim-survivors of domestic abuse with the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). Developed in collaboration with Surviving Economic Abuse, Women’s Aid, and victim-survivors, it highlights serious gaps in support and safeguarding.

What are our key findings?

For many victim-survivors of domestic abuse, the CMS is the only safe route to securing the financial support their children are entitled to. It is therefore essential that it provides a trauma-informed and safe service. However, victim-survivors tell us that the CMS is failing to meet their and their children’s needs.

Instead, they describe a service that is weaponised by perpetrators of abuse to continue coercive control and financial abuse post-separation. Our research finds persistent challenges with the service, including weak enforcement, payment loopholes, inadequate safeguards, poor specialist support, and a reliance on parents with care to report and investigate fraud and non-compliance.

One parent told us:

“People on the end of the phone with the CMS are often blaming and coming with their own biases.”

Another parent said:

“When does this fight stop? I’m 16 years down the line and still having to fight on a daily basis.”

These findings echo our Fix the CMS report, published in 2024, which showed that the CMS is failing to protect people who have experienced domestic abuse and, in some cases, is making the abuse worse.

The government has recognised misuse of child maintenance as a form of violence against women and girls (VAWG) within their VAWG strategy, and has announced welcome reforms to the CMS, including the removal of Direct Pay and a reduction of fees. However, the legislation for these reforms is not expected until 2027/28, despite the urgent need for change. Additionally, the government needs to go further to ensure the system meets the needs of victim-survivors of abuse.

What are our recommendations?

Our research found that victim-survivors want reforms to the CMS to include:

• Urgently introducing legislation that will enable the government to safely transition service users from the Direct Pay service to Collect and Pay.
• Providing specialist developed and delivered training and support for CMS staff to consistently identify and respond to domestic, including economic, abuse, with a particular focus on how the CMS is used to coerce and control victim survivors.
• Improving safeguarding processes and procedures to help survivors safely engage with the CMS to manage their children’s entitlements. This includes basic procedures for alerting survivors to any changes or contact with a perpetrator that could increase their risk of harm, and ensuring access to specialist, trauma informed support.
• Using stronger enforcement of non-payment and fraudulent non-disclosure of earnings responses, including improved automatic maintenance calculations based on cross-agency information sharing, proactive monitoring and investigations that do not place a disproportionate burden on victim-survivors to report or prove fraud, and a zero tolerance approach to non-compliance. The reforms should also close loopholes that allow abusers to misuse the enforcement process to evade accountability and urgently introduce secondary legislation to implement commitments made in the Child Support (Enforcement) Act 2023.
• Removing barriers to the Collect and Pay service, by guaranteeing that victim-survivors can remain on Collect and Pay indefinitely to safely manage their children’s entitlements and waiving Collect and Pay fees for all parents, so that they are not financially penalised for relying on the CMS to safely manage their children’s support.

Vaila McClure, Head of Communications and External Affairs at Gingerbread, says:

“This research shows how the Child Maintenance Service is too often being used as a tool for ongoing abuse, rather than providing the safety and support families need.

Failures in safeguarding and enforcement are allowing perpetrators to continue to control and harm families long after relationships have ended, leaving children without the financial support they are entitled to.

Whilst the government has acknowledged the problem, recognition alone is not enough. Urgent reform is needed to protect children and the parents caring for them.”

What’s next?

To mark the launch of the briefing, we are hosting a drop-in event in Parliament today, giving MPs the opportunity to learn more about our research and hear directly from victim-survivors about what needs to change.

We will work with parliamentarians and engage with the government to push for the reforms to the CMS that victim-survivors urgently need. As part of this, we are calling on the government to bring forward the legislation to consolidate the CMS in the forthcoming King’s speech, which will take place on 13 May 2026.

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