We call on the UK Government to reform the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) and create a fairer system for non-resident parents.

At present, the State can enforce child maintenance quickly and efficiently, yet many non-resident parents face significant barriers, costs, and delays when trying to maintain a meaningful relationship with their children. Financial responsibilities are enforced automatically, while parental involvement often depends on lengthy mediation processes, expensive court applications, and inconsistent enforcement of contact arrangements.

This imbalance creates a system where one parent's obligation to pay is immediate and enforceable, but their ability to remain an active parent can be difficult, costly, and sometimes impossible to secure.

Where it is legal, safe, and in the child's best interests, children should be supported to have a meaningful relationship with both parents. The Government should actively promote this principle through policy, not merely through words.

We therefore call on the Government to:

1. Reduce or abolish the excessive CMS collection charges imposed on paying parents.
2. Introduce equal collection fees for both paying and receiving parents when the CMS Collect and Pay service is used.
3. Review whether current charging structures unfairly penalise non-resident parents who are already supporting two households from a single income.
4. Improve access to legal aid and affordable legal support for parents seeking contact with their children.
5. Simplify and speed up the process for resolving child-arrangements disputes.
6. Strengthen enforcement against unreasonable and repeated obstruction of child contact where no safeguarding concerns exist.
7. Create a presumption that, where safe and appropriate, children benefit from having both parents actively involved in their lives.
8. Recognise the significant impact that parental exclusion can have on mental health, family stability, and child wellbeing.

The law may be written in gender-neutral terms, but many non-resident parents experience a different reality. They face mandatory financial obligations, collection charges, legal costs, emotional distress, and often the loss of meaningful time with their children. For many, maintaining contact requires resources they simply do not have.

A fair family justice system should not treat financial support and parental involvement as separate issues. Children deserve financial support, but they also deserve the opportunity to maintain loving relationships with both parents wherever it is safe to do so.

The Government must stop treating one aspect of parenting as compulsory and the other as optional. If the State can act swiftly to collect maintenance, it should act with equal determination to support children in maintaining safe and meaningful relationships with both parents.