Petition · past parliament

(CMS)Change the way Child Maintenance Service works.

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

Those who have been affected by CMS will know that the way this system operates does not allow for fair treatment to both parties.
The system makes a lot of errors while calculating the payments, that is for both paying and receiving parent. This system does not allow you to fix the errors easily.
The Government needs to seriously re-consider the way the maintenance system is calculating the payments, working out the ''earnings'', calculating the under/over payments, considering how many nights the child stay's with other parties and make errors easily fixable. Those who have been affected will know how much financial stress this puts on the parents. This system should help both parent's not harm one and help the other. Many Fathers/Mothers are better of not working vs. working & paying

Why it was rejected

It was not clear what the petition asked the UK Government or Parliament to do.

Petitions need to call on the Government or Parliament to take a specific action.

We understand that you would like to see some changes in how the CMS works, but we're not sure what changes you'd like to see happen.

You could start a new petition explaining clearly what you would like the Government or Parliament to do.

We have published the following petitions, which you might like to sign:

Calculate child maintenance based on actual child expenses: Calculate child maintenance based on actual child expenses

Stop bonuses and overtime being included in child maintenance calculations: Stop bonuses and overtime being included in child maintenance calculations.

Calculate child maintenance on net not gross income: Calculate child maintenance on net not gross income.

Timeline

8 Nov 2021 Petition opened for signatures
15 Nov 2021 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21
Status Rejected
Rejected 15 Nov 2021

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.