The government says child maintenance is helping deliver the largest fall in child poverty since records began. That claim belongs to three unrelated benefit policies, and the phrase that limited it did not survive the move.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
In short. DWP's 23 October 2026 press release says Child Maintenance Service call answering has reached 85%, "compared with 59% in summer 2024" [1]. The department's own data tables, published the same day, record that the 59% quarter was not ordinary service: a footnote says it was caused by CMS "prioritising the reduction of workload backlogs," a choice the department made itself [2]. The release separately credits child maintenance with helping produce "the largest reduction in child poverty since records began," a line lifted from a different July 2026 report, where it is explicitly scoped to "a single parliament" and credited to three unrelated policies [3]. A third figure, the "around 120,000 children" child maintenance is said to keep out of poverty, is unchanged from a December 2021 release under a different government, where it was credited jointly to maintenance and private family arrangements [4]. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
The Department for Work and Pensions published a press release on 23 October 2026 headlined "More money reaching children than ever thanks to Child Maintenance Service" [1]. Most of its core numbers check out: nearly 130,000 parents now paying more than 90% of what they owe through Collect and Pay, up 27% on the same quarter last year; the share paying nothing down almost 19% since March 2025 [1]. Checked directly against the ODS data tables the release itself links, both figures are accurate [2]. What does not hold up is the comparison the release uses to describe its customer service improvement, and two poverty figures stitched on at the end that belong elsewhere.
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the government's own evidence shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| "85% of calls now answered, compared with 59% in summer 2024, while average waiting times have fallen from more than 28 minutes to just over 11 minutes" [1] | The underlying data table (Table 2) records 59% answered and a 28:15 average wait for the quarter ending September 2024, then adds its own note: "there was an unusually high influx of calls. This coincided with the CMS prioritising the reduction of workload backlogs to enable improvements to telephony routing" [2] | The baseline quarter was a self-inflicted dip, not typical service; the quarter immediately before it already answered 81% of calls in 14 minutes |
| "Child maintenance plays a vital role in tackling child poverty, with the Government set to lift 550,000 children out of poverty in the final year of this Parliament, thanks to action including the lifting of the two-child benefit limit. This represents the largest reduction in child poverty since records began" [1] | The source report for this figure credits "scrapping the two-child limit, expanding free school meals from September 2026 and launching our £1 billion Crisis and Resilience Fund," with the quote reading "the largest reduction in child poverty in a single parliament since records began" [3] | Child maintenance is not one of the three named measures, and the "single parliament" qualifier is gone |
| "Helping keep around 120,000 children out of relative poverty" [1] | The identical figure appears in a 14 December 2021 release, under a different government: "Child maintenance and family-based payments lift around 120,000 children out of poverty each year" [4] | A five-year-old, jointly-credited estimate, now attributed to child maintenance alone with no new source given |
The mistakes, counted
The "record" service improvement is measured against a quarter the department's own data says was abnormal (1). Today's release presents 85% call answering and an 11:17 average wait as proof of a turnaround from "59% in summer 2024" and "more than 28 minutes" [1]. Both of those older figures are real: Table 2 of the department's own data file records 59% answered and a 28:15 average wait for the quarter ending September 2024 [2]. But the same table carries a note explaining why that quarter was so bad: "there was an unusually high influx of calls. This coincided with the CMS prioritising the reduction of workload backlogs to enable improvements to telephony routing in September 2024. As a result, the percentage of calls answered during this quarter decreased" [2]. CMS chose, that quarter, to put staff on clearing a backlog instead of answering phones, and the data table says so in its own footnotes. The quarters either side were nowhere near as bad: the quarter before, January to March 2024, already answered 81% of calls with a 14-minute average wait, and the quarter after, October to December 2024, answered 75% [2]. Measured against the department's own more representative recent quarters, today's improvement is real but far smaller than the headline comparison suggests.
A child poverty superlative is borrowed from three unrelated policies, with the clause that limited it dropped (2). Today's release states plainly that child maintenance helps deliver "the largest reduction in child poverty since records began" [1]. That exact superlative traces to a 9 July 2026 DWP and Department for Education report setting a baseline for the Child Poverty Strategy, where Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said: "Together, these represent the largest reduction in child poverty in a single parliament since records began" [3]. "These" meant three specific measures named two paragraphs earlier: "Scrapping the two-child limit, expanding free school meals from September 2026 and launching our £1 billion Crisis and Resilience Fund," expected together to "lift around 550,000 children out of poverty by the end of this Parliament" [3]. Child maintenance is not among them. Today's release reuses the 550,000 figure and the superlative, drops "in a single parliament," and places both directly after a sentence crediting child maintenance's role in "tackling child poverty," so a reader comes away thinking the Child Maintenance Service is part of a claim that was never about it.
The "120,000 children" figure is five years old and has had its credit narrowed (3). Today's release says child maintenance arrangements are "helping keep around 120,000 children out of relative poverty" [1]. The identical number, to the thousand, appears in a DWP press release from 14 December 2021, published under the Johnson government: "Child maintenance and family-based payments lift around 120,000 children out of poverty each year" [4]. That 2021 release credited the figure jointly to statutory child maintenance and private, unregulated family-based arrangements between parents, not to the Child Maintenance Service alone. Today's release carries no new source, no updated year, and no mention that the number was ever a joint estimate; it simply states it as current and attributes it solely to "child maintenance arrangements."
Credit where due
The compliance numbers that matter most to this release's own thesis, that more parents are paying what they owe, hold up. Nearly 130,000 parents paying over 90% of their Collect and Pay liability is correct and is indeed a year-on-year rise of around 27% against the same quarter in 2025, checked directly in Table 4 of the underlying data [2]. The fall of almost 19% in parents paying nothing since March 2025 is also accurate against the same table [2]. Unlike the call-handling comparison, these two figures use like-for-like quarters a year apart rather than an outlier baseline, and nothing in the underlying data contradicts them.
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The underlying trend, more Collect and Pay parents paying what they owe, is real and the release's own numbers support it. The problem is what gets bolted on around that trend: a customer-service comparison that quietly measures today against the worst quarter CMS has ever recorded, by its own account, and two poverty statistics, one borrowed from an unrelated policy with its qualifying clause removed, the other recycled unchanged from 2021 and given a narrower credit than its original source allows. A reader who checked only the release would not know any of that; a reader who opened the data file the release itself links would.
The star score counts three documented mistakes. First, the release's customer-service "record" compares today's 85% call-answering rate against a quarter the department's own data table says was anomalous, caused by CMS deliberately prioritising backlog clearance over phone answering, rather than against more representative neighbouring quarters that were already in the high 70s and low 80s. Second, the "largest reduction in child poverty since records began" line is borrowed from a different July 2026 report, where it is explicitly scoped to "a single parliament" and credited to three unrelated benefit and spending measures, not to child maintenance. Third, the "120,000 children" figure is unchanged from a December 2021 release under a different government, where it was credited jointly to child maintenance and private family-based arrangements, not to child maintenance alone as stated today. Three falls in the 1 to 3 band: four stars; the bands are on the ratings page. This piece makes no finding about the conduct of any named individual; drafting a press release and its supporting data tables is an institutional process. Checked directly against the press release and three supporting GOV.UK documents, all fetched 26 October 2026.
Sources
- More money reaching children than ever thanks to Child Maintenance Service, Department for Work and Pensions, published 23 October 2026
- Child Maintenance Service: data insights to March 2026, Department for Work and Pensions, published 23 October 2026
- Plan to track progress on lifting 550,000 children out of poverty published, Department for Work and Pensions / Department for Education, published 9 July 2026
- Record £1 billion in child support, Department for Work and Pensions, published 14 December 2021