Synopsis
The Child Maintenance Service is meant to make sure that parents who live apart from their children make regular payments to support them. But it stands accused of doing too little to enforce payments in some cases, leaving parents missing out on money they are legally entitled to, to help care for their children. Meanwhile, parents who make payments say calculations done by the CMS can sometimes be wrong or unaffordable, and that mistakes can affect their mental health. The government says it takes seriously the small number of cases where things go wrong and is making further improvements to the service. Reporter Krupa Padhy meets parents who receive maintenance and those who pay it, and asks whether the system is failing both them and their children?