The Family Justice Review panel today published its final
report which announces a package of recommendations aimed at tackling delays in the family justice system and to make sure that children and families are given the service they deserve.
The key recommendations are:
- A new six month time limit in care cases so delays are significantly reduced.
- Enabling people to make their own arrangements for their children when they separate, and only use courts when necessary.
- Overhauling the family justice system so that agencies and professionals work together with greater coherence to improve the experience and outcomes for children and families.
These recommendations follow the independent review panel findings that the current system of family justice is under huge strain. Rising caseloads coupled with incoherent organisation and processes are causing damaging delays for children and families. It takes on average over a year for an outcome in a care case - far too long in the life of a child. The backlog of cases in the public law system means today, around 20,000 children are waiting for their futures to be decided.
The panel recommend:
A simpler system to deliver an improved service:
- The creation of a Family Justice Service to make sure agencies and professionals work together to make positive improvements in the system for children and families.
- More judges who are specialists in family law to hear cases from start to finish to ensure consistency and confidence in the system.
- A simplified court structure making it easier for people using the courts to know where to go.
- More child focus and better training for professionals to make sure children’s views are heard.
- Changes to public law (protecting children and taking them into care) to deliver more quickly for children:
- A six month time limit for all cases, save in exceptional circumstances.
- Less reliance on unnecessary expert witnesses and reports.
- Refocusing the courts on the core issue of determining whether the child should go into care.
- Changes to private law (arrangements about children and money following separation), to create a simpler service for families who are separating, aimed at helping them and their children focus on reaching a safe, joint agreement, if possible, without going to court:
- A single online and phone help service to make it simpler for people to decide the most appropriate way forward and increase clarity of understanding.
- Use of Parenting Agreements and a new ‘child arrangements order’ to bring together arrangements for children’s care after separation, focusing on the child rather than ‘contact’ and ‘residence’.
- Increased provision of mediation to prevent cases going to court unnecessarily.
The final review has now been formally presented to the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education and the Welsh Government for consideration.
The Government has issued the following response:
"We are committed to transforming the family justice system and welcome the recommendations made by the Independent Review Panel as a good start. We want a family justice system which truly meets the needs of those at the heart of the system - children.
"It is vital we radically reform the family justice system to tackle delay and improve the service to children. In particular, we know the amount of time it takes for a child to be adopted is unacceptable. We are already taking forward some of the review's recommendations on speeding up care cases and we intend to introduce time limits of 6 months as part of a package of reforms to tackle delay. We hope many cases should be completed much quicker than this. From January 2012 we will publish court-by-court performance so we can see exactly where improvements need to be targeted. In addition, we agree with the panel's strong focus on mediation for separating couples, as a more practical and amicable alternative to court, especially for children, and we will be increasing funding for this by two thirds to £25 million a year.
"As set out in the Coalition Programme for Government, this Government is committed to encouraging shared parenting and is firmly of the view that children should have meaningful relationships with both parents after separation. We will examine carefully the Panel's recommendations as part of achieving that commitment.
"We are considering all the recommendations in detail and we will respond in due course.
