Reference
CMS Jargon, Translated
The Child Maintenance Service runs on jargon, and misreading one term in a letter can cost you money or a deadline. Every term it uses, in plain English.
The people in a case
The CMS has fixed labels for everyone involved, and the letters only make sense once you know which one you are.
- Paying parent
- The parent who does not have main day-to-day care of the child, and so pays maintenance. Older letters and the legislation say non-resident parent, which means the same thing. Which parent this is depends on where the child mostly lives, not on who applied.
- Receiving parent
- The parent the child mostly lives with, who receives the maintenance. The legislation calls this the parent with care, or person with care where the carer is a grandparent or guardian rather than a parent.
- Qualifying child
- A child the CMS can arrange maintenance for: under 16, or under 20 and in approved full-time non-advanced education such as A-levels or BTECs. University does not count. Our guide to when child maintenance stops covers the boundaries.
- Family-based arrangement
- A private agreement between parents, with no CMS involvement, no fees and any amount you both accept. It is flexible but not legally enforceable, so if it breaks down either parent can apply to the CMS. Compare the options in private arrangement vs CMS.
How the money is worked out
The calculation is a formula, and each of these terms is a moving part in it.
- Gross weekly income
- The paying parent's income before tax and National Insurance, but after pension contributions, taken from the most recent tax year HMRC holds. The whole calculation runs off this one number. See what counts as income.
- Nil rate
- No maintenance is payable. It covers paying parents with gross weekly income under £7, full-time students, prisoners and some 16 and 17 year olds on benefits.
- Flat rate
- A fixed £7 a week, however many children are on the case. It applies when gross weekly income is between £7 and £100, or when the paying parent receives certain benefits. Our guide to the minimum payment covers who qualifies.
- Reduced rate
- The band for gross weekly income between £100.01 and £200: you pay £7 plus 17%, 25% or 31% of the income above £100, for one, two or three or more children.
- Basic rate
- The main band, for gross weekly income between £200.01 and £800: 12% for one child, 16% for two, 19% for three or more. These are the percentages people usually quote. The full formula is in how child maintenance is calculated.
- Basic rate plus
- For gross weekly income between £800.01 and £3,000: the basic rate applies to the first £800, then 9%, 12% or 15% on everything above it. Income over £3,000 a week is ignored by the CMS entirely.
- Top-up order
- A court order for additional maintenance where the paying parent earns more than the £3,000 a week the CMS can consider. The receiving parent applies to the family court after the CMS makes a maximum calculation.
- Effective date
- The date your liability starts, set around when the CMS first contacts the paying parent about an application. Everything is owed from this date even if the calculation takes months to complete, but nothing is owed before it. See can child maintenance be backdated.
- Annual review
- The CMS's once-a-year recheck of the paying parent's income against fresh HMRC data. The amount can move up or down, and the review date is fixed by the case anniversary, not the tax year. Our annual review predictor estimates what yours will do.
- 25% tolerance
- Between annual reviews, the CMS will only change the calculation if current income differs from the figure being used by at least 25%. Smaller changes wait for the review. Check where you stand with the income change checker.
- Variation
- A request from either parent for the calculation to consider something the standard formula misses: unearned income such as rent or dividends, assets, diverted income, or the paying parent's special expenses like contact costs. Run through the variation checker to see if grounds exist.
- Diversion of income
- A variation ground arguing the paying parent controls how they are paid and has unreasonably reduced the income the formula sees, for example by leaving profit in a limited company or paying a new partner a salary. It has to be evidenced, not just suspected.
- Unearned income
- Income that is not wages: rental profit, dividends, savings interest. The standard calculation ignores it. It only counts once someone applies for a variation, and generally needs to be £2,500 a year or more.
- Default maintenance decision
- A holding amount imposed when the CMS cannot get income information for the paying parent: £39 a week for one child, £51 for two, £64 for three or more. It stands until real income figures replace it, and it is not revised downwards retrospectively without a fight.
How the money moves
Two services move the money, and the difference between them decides whether anyone pays fees.
- Direct Pay
- The CMS calculates the amount, then the parents move the money between themselves, usually by standing order. Nobody pays ongoing fees. The government has proposed abolishing Direct Pay as part of the CMS reforms, but that is not yet law.
- Collect and Pay
- The CMS collects the money and passes it on. It costs: the paying parent pays 20% on top of the calculation, and the receiving parent loses 4% of what is collected. Work out the real cost with the fee calculator.
- Arrears
- Maintenance that was legally due and has not been paid. Arrears do not expire, survive the end of the ongoing liability, and can be enforced years later. See arrears time limits for what the CMS can and cannot chase.
Challenging a decision
There is a strict order to challenging the CMS, and skipping a step usually means starting again.
- Mandatory reconsideration
- The compulsory first step in challenging a decision: you ask the CMS to look at it again, normally within one month of the decision letter. You cannot go to tribunal without one. Our MR letter generator drafts the request.
- Supersession
- A new decision that replaces the current one because circumstances have changed, such as shared care changing or income moving more than 25%. It runs from around when the change is reported, which is why reporting promptly matters.
- Appeal (First-tier Tribunal)
- Taking the decision to the First-tier Tribunal after a mandatory reconsideration has failed. The tribunal is independent of the DWP, free to bring, and can substitute its own decision. See changing a calculation.
- Complaint
- The route for how the CMS has behaved: delay, lost documents, wrong information, failures to act. It is separate from challenging a calculation. Our complaints letter generator structures one properly.
- Independent Case Examiner (ICE)
- The body that reviews complaints about the CMS once its internal complaints process is exhausted. ICE can uphold complaints and recommend redress. Beyond ICE sits the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, reached through an MP.
- Consolatory payment
- A discretionary payment made under the DWP's special payments scheme to recognise distress or inconvenience caused by CMS error. Amounts are often small relative to the failure, which is exactly what the BBC's Panorama investigation showed.
Enforcement
When maintenance is not being paid, the CMS has a ladder of powers. These are the rungs.
- Deduction from earnings order (DEO)
- An order sent to the paying parent's employer requiring maintenance to be taken from wages at source. The CMS can impose it without going to court. Delays between an order being made and an employer actioning it are a common reason payments stop arriving without any refusal by the paying parent.
- Deduction order
- An order taking money directly from a bank or building society account, either as a one-off lump sum or as regular deductions. Since 2018 the powers reach joint and certain business accounts too.
- Liability order
- A court order confirming the arrears are legally owed. On its own it takes no money, but it is the gateway to bailiffs, charging orders and the serious powers. Our guide to liability orders explains the process and timescales.
- Charging order
- A charge secured against property the paying parent owns, so the arrears are paid from the proceeds when it is sold. In serious cases the CMS can apply for an order for sale to force that sale.
- Driving disqualification
- A court power, on CMS application, to take away a driving licence for up to two years. The court must find wilful refusal or culpable neglect, not just non-payment. Courts can also disqualify someone from holding a UK passport on the same test.
- Committal
- Prison, for up to six weeks, as the absolute last resort. The court must be satisfied of wilful refusal or culpable neglect, and it is rare in practice. See can you go to prison for not paying.
The organisations
Four sets of initials do most of the work in any CMS letter.
- CMS (Child Maintenance Service)
- The government service that calculates and, where asked, collects child maintenance. It is not a separate agency: it is a directorate inside the DWP. Who actually runs it is covered in who runs the CMS.
- CSA (Child Support Agency)
- The predecessor to the CMS, wound down after the 2012 scheme began. Plenty of people still say CSA when they mean the CMS, and old CSA debt was partly written off and partly moved across. See what was the CSA.
- DWP (Department for Work and Pensions)
- The government department the CMS sits inside. Its ministers answer for the CMS in Parliament, its statistics releases are where the official numbers come from, and its special payments scheme is where compensation for errors comes from.
- HMRC's role
- The CMS does not ask for payslips: it takes the paying parent's gross income straight from HMRC's records for the most recent complete tax year. That is why the figure can lag a pay rise or a pay cut, and why the 25% tolerance and annual review exist.
Met a term in a letter that is not here?
Tell us and we will add it. And if you are trying to work out what you would actually pay or receive, start with the calculator.