Reform Child Maintenance Service enforcement to prevent repeated non-payment

Rejected 21 signatures

What the petition asks

At present, parents who fail to pay through Direct Pay can be moved onto a Deduction from Earnings Order (DEO), but can default back to DP even with a history of non-payment. Enabling repeated defaulting, leaving children and resident parents without financial support for upto 3 months at a time.

Ensure once a DEO is in place it remains until arrears are cleared and a consistent record of payment is established.
Prevent non-paying parents from defaulting to DP.
Strengthen penalties for persistent non-payment.
Enforcing maintenance obligations consistently and promptly, will protect children from financial harm.
Children are disadvantaged because the system allows repeated non-payment.
Close the loopholes and ensure maintenance obligations are enforced effectively.

Why it was rejected

There was already a petition about this issue. Duplicates are rejected so signatures collect in one place.

The following petition calls for a similar action:

Take stronger measures to enforce payment of child maintenance arrears.
Take stronger measures to enforce payment of child maintenance arrears.

Timeline

1 Oct 2025	Petition opened for signatures
27 Oct 2025	Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 21

Status Rejected

Rejected 27 Oct 2025

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