Organisation we investigated: Child Maintenance Services
Date investigation closed: 01 December 2022
The complaint
Mr E complained that Child Maintenance Services (CMS) failed to take appropriate action and provide accurate information between March 2014 and January 2019 to resolve concerns he raised about his assumed paternity of a child.
He says that once CMS took appropriate action, his child maintenance case was closed and he stopped making the unnecessary payments. Mr E says that CMS’ actions caused him financial loss and significant emotional distress.
Background
In March 2014, CMS wrote to Mr E to tell him a child maintenance case had been opened by his ex-partner. He was told to contact CMS straight away if he wasn’t the father of his ex-partner’s child.
Within a few days, Mr E contacted CMS to say although he was on the birth certificate, he doubted he was the biological father of the child. He was then told he could arrange a DNA test.
In April, Mr E said his ex-partner refused his request for a private DNA test. CMS told him he would have to have a test done via one of their approved providers otherwise it would be assumed he was the child’s father. Mr E asked for help to pay for the test. Staff said they would consider the request and get back to him. They never did.
In May, Mr E told CMS he would pay for an approved DNA test, but they had recorded that parentage had already been assumed and told him he had ‘passed the point of no return’. They told Mr E his only option to take things further would be via the courts to have his name removed from the birth certificate.
Mr E raised the issue of paternity with CMS repeatedly, bringing it up with them in September 2014, June, July and August 2015, August, September, and October 2017, and January 2019.
It was during the final phone call that staff realised Mr E had previously been given inaccurate information. He was then told that if he arranged for a DNA test through CMS and his ex-partner refused to engage without good reason, the maintenance case would be closed.
Mr E said he wanted to proceed, so CMS opened a paternity dispute that same day.
His ex-partner was then told she needed to take a DNA test. She told CMS she wanted to close the case and did not want maintenance to be collected. Mr E was then told he was no longer required to make payments.
Mr E complained to CMS who accepted that it failed to take appropriate action on the case and that it gave Mr E inaccurate advice.
Mr E raised his complaint with the Independent Case Examiner (ICE). Their investigation made the same findings as CMS’s internal investigation. ICE recommended that CMS pay Mr E £1,000, which they did.
What we found
CMS can open a paternity dispute at any time and arrange DNA testing itself. They should have raised a formal paternity dispute when Mr E first raised concerns, back in 2014.
However, CMS did not provide accurate information to Mr E or open a paternity dispute until 15 January 2019. Their actions fall so far short of what should have happened that they constitute service failure.
We also found that CMS fell short in its assessment of the financial and emotional impact their failings had on Mr E. We have no doubt that the events caused Mr E significant distress, given the length of time and the repeated misinformation he was given.
Recommendations
PHSO has recommended that CMS pay Mr E £8,580.39 for all of the unnecessary child maintenance payments he made.