When Ticking the Right Boxes Turns Into a Gold Mine

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Imagine this:

A parent — often the mother — comes through a messy divorce, secures a financial settlement, and is now raising the children mostly alone. She wants to maintain the lifestyle she had during the relationship but now, using his money.

So she ticks a single box on the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) form:

“No overnight stays.”

And just like that, the system hands her the jackpot!

We are talking £350 to £600 per child, per month —

No due dilligence by CMS

No context.

No assessment of actual need.

It’s not about what the child requires.

It’s about what the system will pay.

And for the Paying Parent?

Often the father  trying to do the right thing, declaring his full income, contributing in other ways suddenly finds himself punished by a formula that doesn’t reflect reality.

He’s charged so much, he can’t even afford to see his children regularly. He’s already lost the home he signed over in the divorce.

He’s lost the daily connection with his children. Now, he’s priced out of parenthood altogether.

Meanwhile, some parents exploit the system for maximum financial gain:

• Withholding access to the children as leverage

• Demanding top-tier maintenance plus extras — holidays, school trips, clothes

• Saying things like: “If you want to see them, you’ll have to pay more.”

• Using money as a weapon to punish, alienate, and control

And the government? It lets it happen.

When Child Maintenance Becomes a Weapon

This isn’t about supporting children.

It’s about punishing the other parent, milking a formula, and asserting control.

• It’s weaponising child contact.

• It’s using the Child Maintenance Service as a tool of coercion.

• And it’s the children who suffer the most.

Let’s be absolutely clear:

The parent doing the school runs, therapy sessions, hospital visits, the 3am nightmares and the homework battles — yes, they deserve fair financial support. But fair doesn’t mean unchecked power.

Because this system?

It isn’t built on fairness.

It’s built on tick boxes, outdated formulas, and blind assumptions.

Let’s Be Clear:

This isn’t a support system. It’s a battleground.

This isn’t about children. It’s about power.

This isn’t co-parenting. It’s control.

Until the system is reformed —

children will continue to be used as pawns,

and honest parents will keep being punished,

for doing the right thing.

Because these parents are doing right by their children. But in the cost-of-living crisis, the price of fairness has become unaffordable.

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Deanna Newell Family Law

Advocacy for truth-tellers, survivors, and the children who deserve better