Up to 300 parents a year may be dying by suicide under the CMS system

STOPSuicides UK analysis of official DWP Freedom of Information data (FOI2025/78063) reveals a devastating and urgent truth:

Paying parents in the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) are dying at 3× the rate of the general working-age population.

Year	CMS Paying Parent Deaths
2022	1,857
2023	1,955
2024	1,834

This is not a spike. This is a sustained national mortality crisis — hidden, ignored, and unexplained.

Where are the suicide figures?

They are not recorded.
– CMS closes cases at the first proof of death (often a funeral certificate)
– Coroner conclusions — including suicide — often take 6–12 months
– CMS does not update records when inquests confirm suicide
As a result, official suicide numbers linked to CMS do not exist. Not because they aren’t happening — but because they are not being counted.

So we calculated them. Using government data.

Applying ONS suicide rates to the CMS population — then adjusting for the 3× mortality excess — indicates:
• ~250 to 300 deaths by suicide every year among CMS paying parents
Even the most conservative assumptions still indicate:
• 160 to 190 suicides per year
Our analysis indicates that only 20–40% would ever appear in any CMS internal record — meaning 60–80% of suicides are invisible to the system that helped precede them.

Behind the numbers are real harms:

– Severe arrears errors

– Computer-generated enforcement

– Wage and bank deductions

– Debt collection without investigation

– Mental health crises triggered by state pursuit

– Families left without answers

– Parents who never make it out alive

The Government already holds the data that could prove this. But it has never published it.

We are calling for:

– Immediate data-linking between DWP and ONS to establish the real number of CMS-associated deaths

– Annual publication of CMS mortality and suicide statistics

– Independent safeguarding audit of CMS enforcement harms

– A full Public Inquiry into CMS and parent deaths

This is no longer a policy issue. It is a public safety emergency. These are preventable deaths.
STOPSuicides UK will not stop until the truth is counted, published, and acted on.

#NoMoreInvisibleParents #CMSDeaths #STOPSuicidesUK