Ever wondered where your child maintenance payments actually end up? The truth is far more complex: and infuriating: than most fathers realize. Behind the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) lies a web of financial incentives, government profits, and enforcement agents who make money from your misery. It's time to expose the real beneficiaries of this broken system.
The CMS Cash Machine: Profiting from Your Payments
Let's start with the elephant in the room: the CMS itself is making money from your maintenance payments. When you're forced into the Collect & Pay service, here's what actually happens to your hard-earned cash:
- You pay 20% extra on top of your calculated amount
- She receives 4% less than the calculated amount
- The CMS keeps a whopping 24% of the original calculation as pure profit
Think about that for a second. If your weekly maintenance is £100, you're actually paying £120 while she receives £96. That missing £24 goes straight into government coffers. Multiply this across thousands of fathers, and you're looking at millions in annual revenue for a system that claims to "help children."
The government has created a financial incentive to keep fathers trapped in this expensive service. They actively discourage Direct Pay arrangements because there's no money in it for them. It's not about children: it's about cash flow.
The Receiving Parent's Multi-Stream Income
Here's where it gets really interesting. Your maintenance payment is often just one of several income streams flowing to the receiving parent. Let's break down the full financial picture:
Child Maintenance: Your weekly or monthly payment
Child Benefit: £25.60 per week for the first child, £16.95 for additional children
Universal Credit: Potentially hundreds more per month if they're not working full-time
Housing Benefit/Social Housing: Subsidised or free accommodation
Council Tax Reduction: Further savings on local taxes
Free School Meals and Uniform Grants: Additional child-related support
Add it all up, and you're looking at a substantial monthly income: much of it tax-free. Meanwhile, you're working full-time, paying tax on your earnings, and then paying maintenance on top of that already-taxed income.
The Housing Scam: Free Homes and Financial Incentives
This is where the system gets truly twisted. Many receiving parents qualify for social housing or housing benefit precisely because they're claiming to be the "primary carer." Your maintenance payments help fund a lifestyle while she gets subsidised accommodation.
Local councils prioritise single mothers for housing allocation. They get:
- Priority on waiting lists
- Reduced or zero rent through housing benefit
- Properties that would cost £1,000+ per month in the private market
Meanwhile, you: the paying father: often can't afford suitable accommodation for contact visits because your income is being siphoned off. The system punishes the working parent and rewards the one gaming the benefits system.
Enforcement Agents: The Bailiffs Making Bank
When you miss a payment, the real vultures circle. Enforcement agents aren't just collecting your debt: they're making serious money from it. Here's how the enforcement racket works:
Stage 1 – Compliance Fee: £75 added to your debt immediately
Stage 2 – Enforcement Fee: £235 when they visit your home
Stage 3 – Sale of Goods: 7.5% of the debt value plus £110 per hour for removal
Stage 4 – High Court Enforcement: Up to £1,090 in additional fees
These aren't just administrative costs: they're pure profit for private enforcement companies. The more fathers who fall behind, the more money these companies make. There's a financial incentive to make the system as punitive and stressful as possible.
And here's the kicker: even if you're paying religiously but through Direct Pay, the CMS can still refer you to enforcement agents if there's any dispute about amounts or timing. You could be up to date but still face bailiffs at your door.
The Contact Denial Trap: Pay Up, Shut Up, Get Nothing
This is perhaps the most heinous aspect of the entire system. Thousands of fathers are forced to pay maintenance for children they're not allowed to see. The system treats payment and contact as completely separate issues: but only when it benefits the mother.
You can be denied all contact with your children and still be legally obligated to pay. Miss a payment while being denied access? Enforcement agents will be round to seize your belongings. It's the perfect trap: pay for children you can't see, or face legal consequences.
The CMS doesn't care whether you have a relationship with your children. They only care whether you're paying. This creates a perverse incentive for alienating parents to cut contact while maximizing financial extraction.
Government Revenue Streams: Following the Money Trail
Let's talk numbers. The CMS collected over £1.2 billion in child maintenance in 2023. With fees averaging 20-24% on Collect & Pay arrangements, that's potentially £240-300 million in annual government revenue.
But that's not all. The government also saves money by:
- Reducing benefit payments to working fathers who can't afford rent after maintenance
- Collecting income tax from enforcement actions and asset seizures
- Generating court fees from liability orders and charging orders
The system is designed to extract maximum revenue while providing minimal oversight or fairness. It's a government cash cow disguised as child welfare.
The Administrative Army: Jobs for the Boys
Thousands of civil servants, enforcement agents, court officials, and private contractors make their living from this system. The more complex and punitive it becomes, the more jobs it creates.
CMS caseworkers have targets for moving cases from Direct Pay to Collect & Pay. They're literally incentivised to push fathers into the expensive service. Enforcement companies lobby for tougher collection powers because it means more business.
It's a self-perpetuating bureaucracy where everyone profits except the fathers paying and the children supposedly being helped.
The Real Victims: Children and Working Fathers
While everyone else gets rich, who's actually losing out? The children who don't see their fathers because the system prioritises payments over relationships. The fathers who work multiple jobs to pay maintenance but can't afford a bedroom for weekend contact.
The current system incentivises conflict, not cooperation. There's no money in happy, functional families sharing care 50/50. But there's millions to be made from broken families trapped in expensive bureaucratic processes.
Breaking Free: What Fathers Can Do
Knowledge is power. Understanding where your money really goes is the first step to fighting back. Every father paying maintenance needs to:
- Demand detailed breakdowns of all fees and charges
- Challenge every enforcement action through proper legal channels
- Document all contact denials to expose the hypocrisy
- Share your experiences to build awareness of this exploitation
The system only works because most fathers suffer in silence. When we expose the financial incentives and challenge the narrative, we can start demanding real change.
Fathers United. Rights Respected.
This isn't just about money: it's about dignity, fairness, and your right to be a father. The CMS and its army of profiteers have built an empire on your suffering. But knowledge is power, and awareness is the first step to change.
Every Dad Matters. Your financial contribution should support your children, not fund a bureaucratic machine that keeps you apart from them. It's time to demand transparency, accountability, and real reform of this broken system.
Join us in exposing the truth. Share this article. Make noise. The more fathers who understand where their money really goes, the harder it becomes for this exploitation to continue.
Together, we can build a system that puts children first( not government profits.)