[1] The Commission’s primary objective was to maximise the number of effective child maintenance arrangements (private or statutory) in place for children who live apart from their parents.

The Commission also provided an efficient statutory child maintenance service with improved assessment, collection and enforcement processes.

These changes aimed to ensure parents take responsibility for providing financial support for their children where they have access to them, or indeed do not.

The Commission was abolished on 30 July 2012, but despite its functions being subsumed back into the Department for Work and Pensions, the 'Child Maintenance Group' continues to operate using the client-facing brand name of the Child Support Agency for those using the 1993 and 2003 statutory schemes.

The new '2012 Scheme' is branded as the Child Maintenance Service and began limited intake of new cases on 10 December 2012.