Is child maintenance changing?

On 23^rd June 2025, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) published a response to a consultation about how the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) manages child maintenance payments.

Currently, parents can choose to have a formal assessment carried out by the CMS but make and receive payments directly to each other. This therefore carries no charge to parents. The only charge is levied when parents choose or are required to use the Collect and Pay service. This incurs an uplift of 20% to the paying parent, and a 4% reduction from the receiving parent.

Under the proposed new rules, the DWP have confirmed that there will be no Direct Pay option, thus if parents choose to have a formal assessment, they will be required to pay through the Collect and Pay system, incurring a percentage charge. For compliant parents, the uplift will be 2% for paying parents and a further 2% for receiving parents, which is a drastic reduction from the present percentage, but an increase of course for those parents who would otherwise have paid without CMS involvement. For non-compliant paying parents however, the uplift remains at 20%.

A recent linked case

Further it should be considered in the event of top-up orders in the future. The recent case of OS v DT [2025] EWFC 156 (B) concerns child maintenance where the parties share care equally. HHJ Hess observed that where a parent or child resides outside of the UK, they do not need confirmation from the CMS that it has no jurisdiction, but they should obtain a maximum income assessment from the CMS before applying for a top-up order. He suggested that this also applies where there is shared care, as the CMS does not have jurisdiction in such a situation. This suggests that under the new rules, there may be some complications in how the payments are made or collected, should parents be non-resident, or sharing care equally, when one parent considers that there should be top-up maintenance.

Finally, within the response the government announced an intention to consult on further reform, including on how statutory child maintenance is calculated. This appears to be proposed for late 2025, so watch this space.

For more information on mediation, contact Rachel Giles or the Family team.