'They took £20,000 I didn't owe': Parents hit by child maintenance errors

Tammi Walker & Jennifer Meierhans BBC News Investigations John Hammond had nearly £20,000 in child maintenance he did not owe taken from his bank Maths teacher John Hammond was a few weeks into his job at a new school, chatting to colleagues in the staff room during lunch break. He decided to check his banking app to make sure his first month's wages had arrived, but instead discovered £20,000 had been taken by the Child Maintenance Service (CMS). "I was so shocked that I couldn't stop shaking,"

"Other teachers could see something was wrong and asked what was the matter." Hammond's children were 25 and 28, and his child support arrangement had finished more than a decade previously. "I was convinced that it was a scam," says the 56-year-old from Peterborough. More than 30 parents have told BBC Your Voice they've experienced miscalculated child maintenance arrears, money wrongly taken from wages or bank accounts and lengthy court battles with the CMS. As in Hammond's case, the BBC has found many of these reported issues are connected to child support arrangements concluded many years or even decades ago. The CMS replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) in 2012. Its job is to ensure a child's living costs are paid when one of their parents does not live with them. It uses a formula to work out how much a parent should pay. If parents cannot arrange payments privately the CMS can take the money from wages, bank accounts, benefits or pensions. It also has the power to recover arrears if parents fall behind with payments. The experiences shared with the BBC mirror concerns about the CMS raised with the government after parents told a House of Lords report money had been taken "inappropriately" when they were "trying to comply". The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which runs the CMS, did not address the experiences of John Hammond and other individual cases, or explain why in some cases money was taken wrongly from bank accounts. It said it tries to arrange voluntary arrears payments and "enforcement measures are only taken if parents continue not to pay".

Key points

• "Other teachers could see something was wrong and asked what was the matter." Hammond's children were 25 and 28, and his child support arrangement had finished more than a decade previously.
• "I was convinced that it was a scam," says the 56-year-old from Peterborough.
• More than 30 parents have told BBC Your Voice they've experienced miscalculated child maintenance arrears, money wrongly taken from wages or bank accounts and lengthy court battles with the CMS.
• As in Hammond's case, the BBC has found many of these reported issues are connected to child support arrangements concluded many years or even decades ago.
• The CMS replaced the Child Support Agency (CSA) in 2012.