Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics: Data to March 2024
Analytics Division
05/06/2024
Data to March 2024
An Official
Statistics publication
Published by:
Analytics Division, Department for Communities
Frequency: Quarterly
Publication Date: 5 June 2024
Key Points
For the quarter ending March 2024:
There were 690 applications to the Child Maintenance Service.
The Child Maintenance Service was managing 17,510 cases.
There were 23,290 children covered by child maintenance arrangements.
Four-fifths (80%) of parents due to pay child maintenance through the Collect & Pay service paid some maintenance.
The Child Maintenance Service collected/arranged almost £7.1 million in child maintenance.
The Child Maintenance Service collected a total of £809,300 through enforcement actions.
Introduction
The data in this publication relates to the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) 2012 Scheme which was introduced in December 2012 and is for separated parents who cannot arrange child maintenance between themselves. It replaced the previous 1993 and 2003 schemes.
Child maintenance is financial support between separated parents to help with the everyday costs of looking after children.
If separated parents agree, they can arrange child maintenance themselves without the involvement of anyone else. This is called a ‘family-based arrangement’ and is a private way to arrange child maintenance.
The CMS is available to parents who cannot agree a family-based arrangement. Parents wishing to use the CMS must first contact Child Maintenance Choices (CM Choices). CM Choices is a free service that provides impartial information and support to help separated parents make decisions about their child maintenance arrangements.
The CMS offers two levels of service:
Where the CMS calculates the amount of maintenance to be paid and parents arrange the payments between themselves. This is known as Direct Pay.
If parents cannot arrange the payments themselves or the Paying Parent does not pay what was agreed, the CMS can collect and manage the payments between the parents. This is the Collect & Pay service.
The CMS has a range of enforcement actions it can use if the Paying Parent refuses to pay their child maintenance.
Applications to the Child Maintenance Service
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 1
In the quarter ending March 2024, there were 690 applications to the Northern Ireland CMS, an increase of around 60 applications from the previous quarter.
In the quarter ending December 2023, 96% of new applications were cleared within 6 weeks. Clearance figures for the reporting period ending March 2024 will be updated in the next publication.
Composition of cases on the Child Maintenance Service
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 3
At the end of March 2024, the Northern Ireland CMS was managing 17,510 cases, a 5% increase on the comparable figure at the end of March 2023. Of these cases,
10,470 were Direct Pay cases
6,140 were Collect & Pay cases
750 were Arrears Only cases
150 other cases were not yet allocated to a service type (not shown in the chart for presentational purposes)
The number of cases with an on-going liability (excluding Arrears Only cases) managed by CMS has shown an upward trend over the last three years. In contrast, the number of arrears only cases has decreased steadily over the last three years.
Children covered by the Child Maintenance Service
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 4
At the end of March 2024, a total of 23,290 children were covered by a CMS arrangement:
15,030 children were covered by 10,470 Direct Pay arrangements
8,060 children were covered by 6,140 arrangements through the Collect & Pay service
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5,250 of these children were covered by Collect & Pay arrangements where the Paying Parent paid some maintenance during the quarter
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At quarter ending March 2024, almost two-thirds (65%) of all children covered by CMS were covered through Direct Pay arrangements. This proportion has not changed when compared to figures from March 2023, and has remained stable over the last three years.
In March 2024, 23% of children were covered by Collect and Pay arrangements for which some maintenance was paid in the quarter. This proportion has increased by one percentage point when compared to March 2023.
For presentational reasons, a small number of children, who are covered by arrangements not assigned to a service type, have been excluded from Figure 6. However, the chart includes at least 99% of children covered for all quarters shown.
Paying Parents on the Collect & Pay Service
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 5
In the quarter ending March 2024, of 4,500 Paying Parents due to pay via the Collect & Pay service:
3,570 (80%) paid some maintenance
1,060 (24%) paid up to 90% of the maintenance due
2,520 (56%) paid over 90% of the maintenance due
920 (20%) paid no maintenance
The percentage of parents paying some of their child maintenance increased by 2 percentage points in the quarter ending March 2024, compared with the previous quarter. However, the percentage of parents that paid more than 90% of the liability due (56%) has decreased by 2 percentage points compared to the previous quarter.
Parents paying over 90% are grouped together because even if a Paying Parent is fully complying with an arrangement, their compliance rate may not be exactly 100%. This is due to differences between how liability accumulates on the CMS ‘liability schedule’ (used to calculate the amount due) and how collections are scheduled in practice. This group also includes Paying Parents who have paid more than 100% of their liability for the quarter, in order to pay off arrears that they have previously accumulated.
Child Maintenance Due and Paid
The CMS monitors payments made through the Collect & Pay service and can take enforcement action where necessary. If parents using Direct Pay arrangements have maintenance owed, they will have to transfer to Collect & Pay before the CMS can take any action. As a result, the Collect & Pay service contains a subset of Paying Parents who may be less likely to pay.
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 6
During the quarter ending March 2024, £7,479,200 child maintenance was due to be paid:
£5,901,700 was due to be paid through Direct Pay arrangements
£1,577,400 was due to be paid through Collect & Pay arrangements
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75% (£1,187,500) of the amount due through the Collect & Pay service was paid
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Enforcement
When a Paying Parent using the Collect & Pay service does not pay their child maintenance, the CMS can take action to recover the money owed. The CMS can collect unpaid child maintenance in three different ways:
Deduction from earnings order or request – the CMS can instruct a Paying Parent’s employer to deduct child maintenance directly from their earnings.
Deduction order – the CMS may recover unpaid maintenance from a Paying Parent’s bank or building society account.
Civil enforcement actions – a Paying Parent can be taken to court over unpaid maintenance. The courts can grant liability orders, which allow further action to be taken. For example, the case could be referred to the Enforcement of Judgements Office, who can take action to recover any unpaid maintenance and costs. Where the Paying Parent is a homeowner, courts can grant a charging order against the property which would prevent any sale without repayment of the outstanding amount. Ultimately, the court would grant the power to force the sale of the property by an order for sale. If these methods fail, the CMS can apply for the courts to disqualify the parent from driving or to send them to prison.
Source: Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service Statistics, Data to March 2024, Table 7
In the quarter ending March 2024 a total of £809,300 was collected through enforcement actions:
£685,300 was collected through Deduction from Earnings Orders
£41,100 was collected through Regular and Lump Sum Deduction Orders
£40,600 was collected following Enforcement of Judgments Office (EJO) referral action
£36,700 was collected as a result of Liability Order action
£5,600 was collected as a result of Pre Liability Order action
About these statistics
Until the December 2023 Publication, releases of Northern Ireland Child Maintenance Service statistics were labelled as ‘official statistics in development’ (previously referred to as experimental statistics) to reflect the fact that the statistics were new, and methodologies and definitions could develop over time. Since the September 2023 publication, Analytics Division carried out an internal review and found it was appropriate to remove the ‘in development’ label as the statistics are no longer under methodological development and are produced in compliance with the Code of Practice for Statistics. As a result, these statistics are now classified as Official Statistics.
Rounding
Figures within this publication have been rounded to the nearest ten, per cent or £100 unless otherwise stated. Percentages are calculated prior to rounding and therefore totals may not add to 100%.
Definitions
Receiving Parent
The Receiving Parent has the main day-to-day care of the children and receives the child maintenance.
Paying Parent
The Paying Parent does not have the main day-to-day care of the children and pays child maintenance.
Children covered
Children covered is the number of children for whom the Paying Parent has a child maintenance arrangement.
Compliance
This measures how much maintenance has been successfully collected from the Paying Parent compared to the amount of new maintenance arranged via the Collect & Pay service in that three-month period. Note that, if a parent is trying to settle arrears that have previously accumulated, they would need to pay more than the amount of new maintenance arranged during the quarter.
Feedback and Queries
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analyticsdivision@communities-ni.gov.uk.
Lead statistician: Jennifer Davison