The Child Maintenance Service is rotten and fails everyone, according to Richard Thomson, National Director of the Great British PAC. He argues the system is not slightly flawed but built around assumptions from a Britain that no longer exists.
Outdated foundations
The statutory system began with the Child Support Act 1991, followed by the first Child Support Agency scheme in 1993. It has since been redesigned and rebranded, culminating in today's Child Maintenance Service, but one fundamental assumption remains: one parent is treated primarily as the carer and the other as the payer.
That may have reflected many separated families three decades ago, but it does not reflect thousands of families today. Modern parenting has changed: shared care is increasingly common, both parents may work, and both may maintain homes for their children, buying food, clothes, and school uniforms, and paying mortgages or rent, heating bills, transport, and childcare.
Flaws in the calculation
Yet the CMS calculation still focuses on the gross income of the "paying parent" only. The receiving parent's income is not included in the standard calculation. One parent could earn £20,000 and the other £100,000, yet if the £20,000 parent is designated the paying parent, it is principally their income that CMS puts through its formula.
The Great British PAC is campaigning for the financial circumstances of both parents to be considered. This isn't about helping parents escape responsibilities; it's about calculating the right contribution from the full financial picture.
Then there is the absurd 25% rule. CMS generally won't alter the income figure used during the year unless the change is at least 25%. Someone could suffer a 20% fall in income, an enormous financial shock for most families, and still have maintenance calculated using income they are no longer earning.
Shared care not recognised
When it comes to sharing the care of children, the system is not able to adapt. A child can spend approaching half the year with one parent, who provides a bedroom, heating, food, clothes, transport, and everything else, and that parent can still be required to transfer money to the other household.
At 175 nights, a child spends almost half their life in each home. Yet the system continues to force modern shared parenting into a design based on a "parent with care" and a "non-resident parent". The Great British PAC proposes that where a child spends 156 nights or more with each parent, routine maintenance payments should ordinarily cease, subject to safeguards for exceptional circumstances.
Human impact and call for reform
Behind these formulas are real people. Parents have reported debt, severe financial hardship, mental health problems, losing their homes, and in some cases suicide.
The Great British PAC calls for a complete overhaul: both parents' finances should be considered, the 25% rule should go, income information should be accurate and current, genuine shared care should be properly recognised, mistakes should be corrected quickly, and deliberate manipulation of the system should face serious consequences.
Westminster is reviewing child maintenance, and the PAC argues this is precisely when pressure matters. The group is campaigning for fundamental reform and urges supporters to sign a petition to ensure the system returns to its actual purpose: supporting children, not creating another battlefield between parents.
