Parents hit by child maintenance errors lose thousands

Maths teacher John Hammond was a few weeks into his job at a new school when he checked his banking app and found £20,000 had been taken by the Child Maintenance Service.

Hammond's children were 25 and 28, and his child support arrangement had ended more than a decade earlier. He was convinced it was a scam.

More than 30 parents have told BBC Your Voice they experienced miscalculated arrears, money wrongly taken from wages or bank accounts, and lengthy court battles with the CMS. Many cases involve arrangements concluded years or decades ago.

The CMS replaced the Child Support Agency in 2012. It calculates how much a parent should pay and can take money from wages, bank accounts, benefits or pensions. It can also recover arrears.

Hammond believes his case began in September 2002 when the CSA told him he owed £947 but would not collect it. In 2019 the CMS said he owed almost £19,000. He disputed the demand, but the CMS took £19,269 from his bank account in December 2020.

A county court judge later ordered the full sum returned and awarded him £8,000 in legal costs. Hammond had spent £14,055 on fees and remains more than £6,000 out of pocket.

Richard George, 63, had £18,800 taken from his bank account. An appeal tribunal had written off more than £16,000 in arrears in 2016, and he believed the case was closed. CMS correspondence had been sent to the wrong address for several years. The CMS accepted in 2023 that the arrears should never have been carried over and repaid the money, including collection fees.

A House of Lords report in October 2025 said the CMS calculation formula, in place for more than two decades, is neither fair nor transparent. The government has said it will review the model.

The CMS manages 800,000 arrangements. In 2025 it received 92,700 requests to reconsider decisions and changed the outcome in 21,400 cases, almost a quarter of the total.

Michelle Counley of the National Association for Child Support Action said the DWP needs to go further and faster to ensure a fair system. Hammond and George said they want an overhaul so similar mistakes do not happen again.