Child Maintenance Service Reviews 

The Child Maintenance Service and Independent Case Examiner are rotten to their core. They work together to cover up things such as amending notes, even though Independent Case Examiner is meant to be ‘Independent’.

The Independent Case Examiner works and are funded by DWP.

This system is set to fail you at every level up to and including PHSO.
How they do it:
CMS, ICE, ICO, POLICE & PHSO all have a remit into what they can investigate. They use this remit to cover up tampering with evidence.

Cms always seem to favour the receiving parent and dont seem to listen to what the paying parent states overcharge people atrosious amounts customer service discusting

Absolute Criminals. ICE investigates but CMS mislead investigations towards their narrative and don’t share the full info the hold on the system.
But don’t worry it’s coming down!

I wouldn’t even put that star at all. The worst service and customer service ever, they take a lot of money and their calculations always wrong , they estimate your earning up to them and ending up late on rent payments living like never before in my life nearly eat the carpet, you are not in title for any claims but they are happy to
Tax you, take child maintenance and other charges whatever they call it then you the worker end up not even living or having something to even afford towards your own life that’s insane. Slavery and we just numbers in system. Look into to your system and stop abusing me
And am sure that’s happening with others too. Sick of this treatment. I haven’t even worked for few weeks for health issues but they took from my SSP which’s 408 they took 187 Ithat’s a joke and can’t even pay your phone bill
Not just rent etc. this is so sick and had enough.

My experience with the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) over the last 6 years has been absolutely awful. I’ve dealt with constant stress, poor communication, incorrect information being recorded, and what feels like endless harassment even while actively paying for my child.

There have been false accusations, incorrect amounts added, unnecessary collect-and-pay charges, and a complete lack of accountability when mistakes are made. Trying to get anything corrected takes forever, and every conversation leaves you feeling ignored and frustrated.

I fully support paying for your child — that should never be questioned but the way CMS handles cases can feel unfair, aggressive, and incredibly damaging mentally and financially. After years of dealing with this system, I genuinely feel exhausted and let down.

Inept, potentially corrupt, spiteful shambles & will it be abolished once it all comes out in the wash. Sadly nothing will happen to those that are in charge of this service but it should.

These fraudsters are collecting £36.40 from universal credit every months and also asking me to pay additional of £48 a month. This CMS must be ran by the politicians and I believe MPs must have a share too

Feminist fraudsters

I’m disappointed that 1 star is the lowest I can give. Firstly. If they tell you they’re going to call you back. Don’t ever get off of the phone, they never will. Was told I’d have an outcome to my complaint within a couple of days and here we are nearly 4 weeks & 20 odd phone calls later (each time being on hold for roughly 30 or 40 minutes) and to no surprise the call handler knows nothing of what I’m on about, I find myself apologising to whoever I’m on the phone with for my clear frustration as it’s never meant to be taken out directly on them.
I’m 30 years old and severely dyslexic (someone else is writing this review for me) Trying to use the online portal is like trying to read Mandarin to me. I have been on collect and pay since December 2021 and not once have I been made aware that I could change back to direct pay (AFTER 6 MONTHS) and stop these ridiculous fee’s incurring every month. To put into perspective thats 4 and an half years of overcharging me which they have admitted too. every time I call, they can’t find the information from the previous call.NOT TO MENTION, I told them a few days after my second child was born, yet 13 months later they still hadn’t updated their records meaning I was still being charged more… The lady I have just spoken to was disrespectful and claimed they’d done nothing wrong despite the fact I’ve already spoken to a manager who has admitted to wrong doing and human error on the CMS’s behalf. If there was ever any slight hope that they’d do things correctly that has completely disappeared. I’ve never in my life dealt with such incompetence and sheer disregard for what this might be doing to people. If the shoe was on the other foot they would chase and chase for money. Not to mention they clearly copy and paste their letters. Using the same abbreviation’s like ‘u’ instead of ‘you’ that give’s me such faith in such a professional organisation. The Child Maintenance Service is a joke and I’m sorry to anybody else in the UK that has to deal with them, I truly feel your pain. Something needs to be done. Dad’s im with you ❤️

Childmaintenece was Ment to be in place to protect women and children of abuse, but allow the financial abuse to continue years after!! My children have had years of the paying parent either not paying ,paying what he thought he should or not on time and now it's been 5 months since since they got any maintenence . Letters never makes sense totals constantly change , nobody seems to know the answers .NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

This service isn't fit for purpose. They do not calculate payments correctly as they use historical information and not real time information. This leads to the complaints procedure which takes up to 12 months to be processed and then to a tribunal which for me was successful almost 2 years down the line. They don't work in a timely manner which is ironic being a GOV organisation. If you owe money to any other Gov Dept, they are very quick to chase and charge you fines etc.
You can't get through on the phone wait hours / even those confident navigating their way around the portal etc it still doesn't answer your questions. When you do get through on phone case workers can only ask for your details and then have to pass it on to someone else - it's completely stressful and frustrating.
They charge more than VAT to deduct from earnings - 24% for admin charges - then they dont do what they say they will do. Tell you it's reliable and avoids complications and missed payments - no it doesn't it's an absolute joke. People have financial commitments and this impacts massively on livelihoods - absolute joke and needs a complete overhaul. Awful service.

Absolutely disgusting. Do not take all facts into consideration.

Just received my yearly letter from these jackasses.

It’s really quite amusing that these inept morons are still saying Ive underpaid my weekly commitment even though my bank statements clearly show I’ve never missed a payment nor underpaid by any amount, yet they still state I’ve underpaid but this time it’s by a completely different amount… even more amusing that it’s a lower amount than they stated last year…

In fact I’ve actually been overpaying for the past year because the eldest is now nearly nineteen and in full time work…

Please please please make an issue of this and I’ll see your inept corrupt lazy bum’s in court where I’m sure they will just love to see my bank account payments and your continuing arse hat behaviour!

Simply not fit for purpose. I divorced about 15 years ago and even though my 2 kids lived 50% with me I had to pay to my ex but never received any payment from her. 3 years ago my youngest, who is now 18 and in 6th form, moved in with me 100%. I made a claim but have not received even a single penny. The CMS say they're working on it but I doubt I'll ever see any payment. Considering they have the power to deduct from your salary and even bank accout their only excuse can be they only harrass men. They took me to court 3 times and each time the judge threw it out.

Useless! Should be renamed Criminal Mismanagement System. They do not care about children's welfare. They do not care about the stress and friction they create between parents. They do not care about anything parents might be dealing with. It's a corrupt, antiquated system that doesn't work. WE NEED CHANGE!!!!!!

I wish we could give NO stars. I feel I have to review what is a disgraceful, incompetent, uncompassionate service, which was put in place to help children with errant fathers. My step son isn't such a father, he pays to maintain his son, but is part of what appears to be a profiteering corrupt service. He has been paying by deduction of earnings but as his company has changed hands, (his job remains the same), he has now been told to pay by standing order for 6 months, at a cost which goes to CMS. My step son quoted the law which stipulates that the payer can opt for deduction of earnings, but all he has got back is notification that because the HMRC have said no, they can do no more. We have worked out that the CMS actually owe my step son £2500 for erroneous information in their useless system. I have personally heard his call to the operator and all she could say is "sorry" sorry doesn't cut it when my step son (who has battled with mental health problems), is near to exhaustion due to the stress of this government department's profiteering. We aren't convinced that the money he pays goes towards my grandson's upkeep. I would like for someone to put in place that the payee needs to show proof of where the money is going. One government department just DOESNT speak to the other and in the middle are good dads and mums who are being shafted, sometimes towards being suicidal. This HAS to stop. We are in the process of contacting the ombudsman on Form SSCS2. These people HAVE to be taken to task. My stepson loves and supports his son but he also has bills to pay and the stress is, literally, killing him

A four minute automated voice message that you can't skip, and which repeatedly asks you to use the online service web chat. There is no online web chat. Finally, you are asked for identification details via another automated service, then cut off after 5 minutes without even getting to speak to a human. And then, after a further 25 minutes of waiting, the person at the other end is hopeless.

A Paying Parent's Account of Life Inside the CMS Machine
Nobody tells you, when the Child Maintenance Service first makes contact, that you are entering a system capable of dismantling a person completely. Not just financially. Not just legally. Psychologically. Existentially. There are paying parents, men and women, who have not survived their experience of the CMS. That is not rhetoric. That is a fact that has been raised in Parliament, documented by charities, and left largely unaddressed by the government that runs this agency.
To understand how a bureaucratic service pushes people toward suicide, you have to understand the particular cruelty of what it does and how it does it.
It begins with the calculations. As a paying parent, you are assessed on income figures that are frequently wrong, outdated, or stripped of legitimate context, pension contributions, unavoidable deductions, periods of reduced earnings. When you challenge these figures, you are met not with engagement but with process: referrals, timescales, holding letters, and eventually a decision that often simply restates the original error. You are not heard. You are processed.
Then comes enforcement. A Deduction of Earnings Order can be applied to your wages without warning, taking amounts that bear no relationship to what has been agreed or assessed, leaving you unable to meet your own basic costs of living. Rent, food, utilities, all become precarious overnight. And when you raise this, when you explain that you cannot survive on what remains, the answer is more process. More waiting. More silence.
Simultaneously, you are expected to maintain your relationship with your children, the entire stated purpose of the system, while being financially gutted by it. Many paying parents describe the particular anguish of wanting desperately to be present for their children, to pay fairly and willingly, while being treated by the state as a debtor to be pursued rather than a parent to be supported. The system does not distinguish between the absent, wilfully evasive non-payer and the engaged, struggling parent trying to do right. Both are processed identically.
For those who also face false or exaggerated claims, or who watch the system being weaponised by a former partner to extend conflict, the psychological damage compounds rapidly. You begin to feel that the state has decided, institutionally, that you do not matter. That your distress is irrelevant. That your children's relationship with you is not a priority, only the extraction of money is. And when a person feels simultaneously financially destroyed, institutionally invisible, and separated from their children, the conditions for a mental health crisis are not just present, they are manufactured.
This is not speculation. The charities and others have documented repeated instances of paying parents in acute psychological crisis directly attributed to CMS related pressure. Parliamentary questions have been raised. Ministers have offered sympathy and little else. The system continues unchanged.
What is required is not compassion as an afterthought. It is structural reform: an independent appeals mechanism with real teeth, mandatory safeguarding checks for the mental health of both parties, an end to the punishing fees that make "Collect and Pay" an instrument of financial ruin, and a fundamental cultural shift within the CMS that recognises paying parents as human beings with rights, not simply revenue streams.
Until that happens, the CMS will continue to be an agency that, for some of the most vulnerable people it touches, does not merely fail, it destroys.

Just been told that the arrears that I was told to pay last December at the end of my maintenance of £50.50 which i pay at £5.05 a month direct pay to my ex is now £78.35 and there coming after it regardless. How do can I pay if CMS are just making numbers up without asking me if I have prof of payments and they just put the phone down on me and ended the call without giving me a valid reason

CMS are just stealing money

Iv reported a change of income 21 weeks ago (long term is 12 weeks or more) while waiting for a back operation before i can rethrn to work. 4 times i have uploaded my pay slips proving my income. HMRC have given them information about my income which is on my profile. Each time they have rejected the fact my income has changed and when asking why they said a computer makes a decision automatically and they cant understand why the computer isnt recognising the information they have. For 3 weeks iv been told twice the 'case manager' will call me.. ill at this rate ill be dead before they do. Iv been left with next to nothing to live off or provide for my 2 other children because a computer does their job for them. Theyre a disgrace.