25/08/2026
A BBC Panorama investigation this week has put the Child Maintenance Service back under serious pressure.
The programme found parents, mostly mothers, chasing thousands of pounds in unpaid maintenance, with one mother telling the BBC she had to rely on food banks after her ex-partner built up arrears of nearly £10,000. Fathers also came forward describing administrative errors at the CMS that left them distressed. The CMS's own director responded that the service has "worked pretty effectively", a response that has done little to quiet growing calls for wilful non-payment to become a criminal offence.
For now, non-payment of child maintenance isn't itself a criminal offence, but the CMS already has real enforcement powers, including deducting money directly from wages or bank accounts, liability orders, forcing the sale of a paying parent's property in serious cases or disqualifying them from a driving licence or passport. The problem this investigation points to is enforcement in practice, not a lack of legal tools on paper.
If you're the parent chasing unpaid maintenance, or a paying parent facing enforcement action you believe is unfair, it's worth understanding both what the CMS can already do and where a solicitor can move things forward faster, whether through the CMS route or a separate court application.