There will be no improvements to family court services without ‘comprehensive investment’ said Bar Council Chair Barbara Mills KC in response to the Public Accounts Committee’s (PAC) report ‘Improving family court services for children.’
Published last week, the report said children and families were being ‘let down’ by what were described as ‘unacceptably long’ delays in the family courts, inconsistent timescales across the country, and a lack of accountability across the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Department for Education (DfE), His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass); where no single body is accountable for overall performance.
The report goes on to make six recommendations including setting out plans to improve the speed of cases; tackling the lack of accountability which was also highlighted in a recent National Audit Office report, report; and a clear plan for further rollout of the Pathfinder programme.
“Due to chronic under-funding, the family justice system has been failing vulnerable children. Those failures are inimical to the welfare of the children the system seeks to protect.”
said Mills, welcoming the ‘comprehensive set of recommendations’ which set out to tackle the issues she describes as ‘plaguing the system.’ For Mills, the route to sustainable child-centred justice was highlighted in the Bar’s submissions to the PAC’s call for evidence, some of which is included in the final report, highlighting the expansion of the pathfinder programme, and further support for litigants in person as examples of focusing on improving processes to monitor and achieve quicker and more positive outcomes. Mills concluded
“The government has a choice. These recommendations provide a roadmap to change but they will not bear the fruit which children, families and those working across the court system need to see and feel without comprehensive investment in family justice.”
The Law Society of England and Wales said would welcome the ‘swift implementation’ of the reports’ recommendations and called on the reinstatement of Legal Aid for early advice. Law Society president Richard Atkinson said:
“While the calls for the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Education to work with partners to improve the timeliness of family justice are essential, the government needs to recognise that legal aid can play a greater role in addressing these challenges. There continues to be a high number of litigants in person – people navigating the courts without representation. This is unsurprising given that cuts to legal aid have forced many to represent themselves through often highly stressful and complex legal proceedings.
“Reinstating legal aid for early advice would make a cost-effective contribution to reducing backlogs in the family courts and help provide children caught up in these cases with the stable family circumstances they need to thrive. Early legal advice can help to divert families away from court, where appropriate, and enable them to understand what is required to resolve disputes before issues become entrenched.”
The Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEX) has similarly welcomed the report. President Sara Fowler said the report highlighted issues family law professionals have long been aware of.
“There are considerable inefficiencies in the system which are creating unnecessary hardship for the children involved, with the most vulnerable, including victims of domestic violence, facing the biggest challenges. CILEX welcomes the recommendation for a system-wide review and assessment of the process inefficiencies that are impacting on performance.”
“The Committee also wants to see a joined-up data and evidence strategy set out in the next six months, reflecting our concerns about the effectiveness of data sharing between Cafcass, local authorities, the judiciary and social services, with communications gaps that mean you cannot track a child’s progress through the system from end to end.”
The body called on the government to take urgent action to better protect children.
Around the family law community professionals have expressed their response to the report. Sarah Norman-Scott, a family lawyer at Hodge Jones & Allen, said the current system undermined public trust, putting children and victims of domestic abuse at risk.
“The justice system risks becoming part of the problem rather than the solution, with the re-traumatisation of families that are already facing considerable challenges and the minimising of their experiences. The courts have long been under-resourced, with a lack of judiciary time, cuts to legal aid funding and insufficient specialist support for domestic abuse victims. Reforms need to be made urgently and must be properly funded with wide-scale national implementation and full accountability for poor performance. Where safe and appropriate, we need to see increasing use of out of court dispute resolution to resolve cases as swiftly as possible.”
Rachel Frost-Smith, Legal Director in the Family Team at Birketts LLP added the delays have unintended consequences as they are an excuse for some parents to ensure children do not spend time with a parent for long periods of time, when ultimately there is found by the court to be no justification for the behaviour.
“The Government could extend support of Alternative Dispute Resolution to enable the lists in Central London to be reduced by cases that do not involve serious safeguarding issues being heard by arbitrators to reduce backlogs (akin to strategies in the NHS). Serious consideration should be given to the establishment of dedicated courts to deal with domestic abuse (modelled on the drug and alcohol courts operating in public law in some areas of the country).”
“The Government should revisit the funding of representation of parties in family proceedings as the cuts to legal aid have succeeded in increasing the time it takes for cases to be heard.”
