💥 THE CHILD MAINTENANCE SERVICE IS COMPLETELY INCOMPETENT AND THE DWP PERPETRATES A CONTINUED COVERUP 👉 READ / SHARE:
Two years ago, I began a series of articles in The Epoch Times that exposed the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) as a scandal “far bigger” than the Post Office Horizon debacle. Debbie Abrahams, Richard Tice and Ann Widdecombe, alongside fearless campaigners, warned of its devastating impact—financial ruin, mental anguish, and even suicides among paying parents crushed by a rogue system. Yet, here we are in 2025, and what’s changed? Nothing meaningful. Why is the gov still dragging its feet on a crisis that’s tearing families apart? 👉
My articles laid bare a CMS riddled with failures: inaccurate assessments, inflated salaries, and draconian enforcement like asset seizures and imprisonment, often without due process. Campaigners like Noel Willcox called it “extortion,” pointing to a 2018 ruling by Judge Greensmith that exposed procedural flaws in liability orders. Parents reported enforcement fees illegally tacked on, yet the DWP dismissed these as mere “mistakes.” Sound familiar?
The parallels to the Post Office scandal are chilling. Like Horizon, the CMS operates with a presumption of infallibility, issuing liability orders based on outdated or fabricated data. Paying parents, often falsely labeled “deadbeat dads,” face bailiffs, passport bans, and jail time. The National Audit Office has refused to sign off on CMS financials since 2012 due to inflated collection figures. Why hasn’t this triggered alarm bells?
Most damning is the human cost. Brian Hudson’s data, cited in all my articles, showed paying parents in arrears have a mortality rate 14.28 times the national average, with 93.1% of “excess deaths” linked to CMS pressure. Labour MP Debbie Abrahams raised suicides in Parliament, yet the DWP denies any causal link. How many more lives must be lost before this is treated as the crisis it is?
The Tory government’s response? A 2023 consultation promised reforms: scrapping the £20 application fee (done in Feb 2024), speeding up enforcement with administrative liability orders (ALOs), and tweaking domestic abuse protections. But these are Band-Aids on a broken system. ALOs, meant to bypass courts, risk further eroding due process, as Families Need Fathers warned in 2024, likening it to the Post Office’s “self-investigations.”
A 2023 High Court case saw single mothers challenge CMS delays, but the judge ruled the failures weren’t unlawful—just “occasional missteps.” Meanwhile, 60% of new CMS users report domestic abuse, yet the system fails to prioritize their cases or protect them from economic abuse. The Child Support (Domestic Abuse) Act 2023 passed, but secondary legislation is still pending. Why the delay?
The CMS manages £1.3 billion for 960,000 children, yet enforcement remains sluggish—down from 22 weeks to 6-8 for ALOs, but still too slow for families in need. Paying parents face aggressive tactics, while receiving parents wait endlessly for funds. Both sides suffer, yet the DWP clings to a culture of “denial and incompetence,” as Tice put it. Where’s the accountability?
CMS powers to raid bank accounts have been questioned as potentially “unlawful,” with calls for the bill be scrapped. Campaigners like Willcox argue liability orders since 2012 could be illegal, ripe for a class action. Why hasn’t this been tested in higher courts? Why are we still debating reforms when the system’s rot is clear?
The Post Office scandal took years of public outcry / a TV drama to force action. Must CMS victims wait for a Netflix series to get justice? The government’s own review admitted modernization is “desperately needed,” yet no real change has been enacted, as Tice urged. Now this isn’t just inaction—it’s potentially life-ending neglect.
I’m calling on MPs to act NOW. Investigate CMS failures, audit its financials, pause ALOs. Share your stories below—let’s make this scandal impossible to ignore ✍️