To let you all know that the Child Maintenance Service..

bas exactly. UC forces single parents to give them four months bank statements and will grill them about it. If I could give your comment multiple hearts I would.

It's the same when single parents want to double barrel a surname. The system won't let them officially add it.

A relevant example relating to this is the recent thread that was on here about people's willingness to pay cash for services.

A staggering number of people posting didn't give a shit that paying tradesmen in cash enabled them to dodge paying child maintenance for their kids.

It was eye opening. People don't give a shit unless it affects them.

I for one won't pay a penny of cash to a tradesperson, bank transfer only, and clearly marked that I'm paying for a service not 'paying a friend' or similar.

The government need to sort it out, and pathetic men need to sort themselves out who produce children and bugger off without helping to feed/clothe/house them.

That’s incredible. Proper, grown up system! Ours is bloody awful - decisions being made at high levels probably by men who aren’t paying for their own children. 😡

I've been through all this shite with my ex

First they 'lost' our details-clamed i didnt have any dc with him and hadn't received any claims for money

Then it was 'hes on the dole so cant pay'

Then it was 'we cant find him' (he was working cash in hand and living with his mother,which i told them but they 'cant take your word for it')

Then it was 'we cant take anything from his salary'

He went to prison at this point and they couldn't take any money from him as 'its against the law'

They did try to contact him at one point and he told them he wasn't going to pay and they couldn't make him-they seemed to back off and take him at his word

Then they lost his details again and then wrote it all off so they won't see a penny

This is a prince among men that cheerfully watched me struggle while going on 5*star Holidays ate out every night buys endless coffees and drove a posh new van (laughing at me as he drove past me a few times)

It's a joke-i wasn't asking for anything my dc where not entitled to

The Swedish system is much better. If the parent who is supposed to pay fails to do so then the state pays the money to the parent raising the child so that they don't suffer, while at the same time chasing the non paying parent for the debt. They have all kinds of powers to take money off people who try to weasel out of paying their taxes and fines, and the children and the parent doing the work of raising them do not suffer.

My experience with the CMS. Have 2 DC with ex.

He used to pay, not always on time and not a lot. But he did. Then he met his now wife.

I received a letter from CMS stating that as he now had responsibility for 2 more DC (not his) my maintenance was reduced.

Then they (ex and wife) decided that I didn't need actual money one month. A bag of her sons cast offs were a suitable replacement. Strangely my DC can't eat clothes, and his old stretched out of shape/faded summer clothes weren't much help in November.

Then he accidentally sent me a message meant for her saying how much he hated living in his flat and not with her. I assume this was so she could still claim as a single parent. So I forwarded this info to CMS. After all, the reduction for her dc is no longer applicable if he's moved out. They said there was no evidence that I hadn't faked the message and I needed to prove he lived elsewhere. His phone number (which they had on record) was shown in the screenshots.

He then quit his job as apparently she couldn't cope with 2 DC on her own, they had 3 more and CMS decided he couldn't afford to pay anything but would persue him for the debts.

They told me over the years that they can't take his driving license away as he needs it to get a job. I don't have one, but UC have never accepted that as a reason I can't work. Seeing as there's a thing called public transport!

Last I heard they'd decided to wipe the debts as he can't pay them and DC are adults now. Which is so kind of them as I'm being threatened by bailiffs for debts I've accrued over the years of not having enough money. Maybe if they actually did their job I could sort that out. Wonder if the bailiffs will wipe my debt on the basis that I can't afford it

CMS are a fucking disgrace.

I just told my husband about this and he said that maybe bollock removal would be more effective - 1 testicle per month in arrears. It would certainly reduce the risk of creating further unsupported children.

He's a paying parent, FWIW.

Indeed, it only took 3 posts before we were met with dipshit classism.

My ex never paid a single penny. My youngest is 33. I still get a yearly statement from CMS notifying me that his contribution will be nil. Gives me the rage, every time

Why can't we adopt the US model of cancelling driving licences of non payers or aggressively chasing them for payment? This country's legal system really, really sucks when it comes to deadbeat fathers who provide no financial support

I have emailed my MP, GMB News, BBC breakfast news and Piers Morgan 🙈 basically saying what you have said OP and I think others should do the same. Who else can we contact?

I didn't even know they had those kinds of powers. That's outrageous!!

This always shocks and amazes me - what on earth do these fathers think their children are living on . The amounts when they are paid are ridiculously low and not always consistent. Society as a whole needs to voice their feelings about this more forcefully.

We need to be clear that child maintenance is not just a single mother issue. Lots of people in new relationships and marriages still are owed maintenance and many struggle without it.

Spot on

YANBU. ExH owes me thousands in unpaid child maintenance. They have his address, NI number, job details. How can it be so hard to make him pay it?!

Where is that statistic from?

I never got a penny. His debt was written off. Manages to have a decent life, buy property abroad etc. only saving grace is our kids, who are now grown up, see through him. They avoid him as much as they feel they can get away with.

It's institutionalised misogyny. There is no will in the CMS to get reluctant contributors to pay up. So the single mothers and their children go without,while the non paying fathers get to hold on to their money. Meanwhile, in British society, single mothers are figures of contempt but very little is ever said or expected of absent fathers.

YANBU. There should be a system in place where if someone is paying minimal maintenance then the DWP need to be hassling them to work more hours so they can support their children adequately. If they can hassle people to pay their tax return and impose the relevant fines then they can insist on this too. The system is pathetic. The last lady I spoke to on the phone on CMS was sympathetic to me to be fair to her but she couldn’t do anything about the fact my ex hasn’t paid anything since last May.

The system is not fit for purpose, but the powers that be won't do anything to sort it out because half of them are probably financially screwing their children over too.

They have asked my exes payroll dept to take money off his wages, they haven't, so I called and asked what the next step was and the CMS person said they called exes work a couple of times and they didn't answer, so they would just keep trying every so often. That's it, the whole solution.

Absolutely! Especially since childcare costs are not taken into consideration at all and we all know nursery fees are prohibitively expensive, especially if you are footing the bill on one salary. It's just a joke.

9% think it’s reasonable? Why???

… the total unpaid debt is 756.6 million pounds as of 2025

What time period, how many years does this relate to?

Whats the median sum owed?

How much per child?

So many questions… It is extraordinary that this situation has been allowed to arise, with nothing being done about it.

They're quick enough to spy on bank accounts of single mothers claiming universal credit though.

We’ve had MPs on here doing MN Webchats including government ministers saying that Something Will Be Done.

Nothing is ever done.

I remember once seeing an MP saying they had powers to remove various things like this. I thought really that’s odd because I’ve seen countless stories online of parents not getting their money… and nothing happening. Well this confirms it!

They actually have a huge array of powers.

Including taking money from a bank account with no warning or court order, but they never use it.

They can put a charge on a house and loads of other things.

There's just no political will (or societal will really) for child maintenance to be a important so the powers are never used

Who is voting YABU?

Regardless of what you think about your ex, the kids are owed that money.