Gingerbread delivers open letter on CMS to the Minister

Gingerbread delivered an open letter to Baroness Sherlock, the minister with responsibility for the Child Maintenance Service (CMS), in October 2025¹. The letter was signed by over 1,600 supporters, including single parents, MPs and charities, and called for five key principles to guide the consolidation of the service¹.

The consolidation was announced in June 2025, when the government published its response to the Child Maintenance: Improving the collection and transfer of payments consultation¹. Under the plans, Direct Pay would be removed and all cases moved to a single service type similar to Collect and Pay, with fees for the new service reduced to 2% for both paying parents and parents with care, down from 20% and 4% respectively¹. A consultation on maintenance calculations was also announced at that point¹.

In her response to the open letter, the minister recognised the need to manage the consolidation with care and set out commitments including that the CMS makes effective use of its enforcement powers and that the consolidation is well resourced¹. Gingerbread said detail on how those commitments would be achieved was sparse, and that the minister confirmed service fees would not be abolished and that legislation already passed to allow victim-survivors to join the CMS on Collect and Pay would not be implemented in the interim¹.

The House of Lords Public Services Committee released its Reforming the Child Maintenance Service report in October 2025, following an inquiry that took evidence from individuals, experts and organisations including Gingerbread¹. The government responded in January 2026, setting out which recommendations it would take forward and which it had rejected¹. Gingerbread said it welcomed commitments including trauma-informed training for CMS staff and legislation for Administrative Liability Orders (ALOs), but was disappointed by the maintained decision not to implement legislation allowing victim-survivors to join the CMS on Collect and Pay¹.

In April 2026, Gingerbread, Surviving Economic Abuse and Women's Aid jointly published "Maintenance is used as a weapon all of the time": Domestic Abuse and the CMS, a briefing on the experiences of victim-survivors who have used the CMS, launched at a parliamentary drop-in event¹.

On calculations, an income must currently change by 25% to trigger a recalculation of maintenance due, a threshold Gingerbread has said can allow significant financial changes without a change in maintenance¹. It was announced in June 2026 that this threshold will reduce to 15%¹. The government has cancelled its public consultation on the calculations process, which Gingerbread said is outdated and based on the Child Support, Pensions and Social Security Act 2000¹. The government has published departmental research on calculations covering 26 resident parents¹.

Why it matters for households

The changes described apply to parents using the CMS, whether they pay maintenance or receive it. Fees for the planned single service would fall to 2% for both paying parents and parents with care, from 20% and 4% respectively, under the June 2025 announcement¹. The reduction in the recalculation threshold from 25% to 15% means a smaller change in a paying parent's income would trigger a review of the maintenance due¹. The government has estimated the announced reforms could lift 20,000 people out of poverty¹. Gingerbread reports that 41% of children in single parent families live in poverty, and that where child maintenance is received it cuts the child poverty rate by 25%¹.

What happens next

The government has not confirmed a firm timeline for the legislation needed to implement the consolidation, or for the legislation for ALOs¹. It has rejected implementing the Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Act, which would allow victim-survivors entering the CMS to move straight onto Collect and Pay without using Direct Pay¹. Gingerbread has called for a clear timeline and for the decision to cancel the calculations consultation to be reversed¹. Further details of how the 15% threshold will be implemented have not been reported¹.