Family courts feel the strain

The family courts are ‘buckling under the weight of pressure’, a leading family lawyers has warned as the government published the latest Family Court quarterly statistics.

Figures for the period April to June 2018 show a 7% rise in the number of new cases started in the family court year on year.

Despite the 26-week rule introduced in 2014, public law (care) cases take an average of 29 weeks to resolve, two weeks more than in the same period in 2017. Private law cases took 26 weeks on average, three weeks longer than in the same period in 2017.

The delays were most marked in divorce—couples took 28.1 weeks from date of petition to decree nisi, five weeks longer than in the same quarter of 2017. However, the number of divorce petitions rose 18% on the 2017 figures to 32,230 during April to June 2018. These are the highest quarterly figures for divorce since 2013—there are usually about 28,000 petitions per quarter.

Jo Edwards, partner and head of family at Forsters, said that, while courts modernisation and increasing digitisation are welcome, ‘the reality is that the pace of change is too rapid’. She said pressure is mounting due to ‘the effect of the swathes of court closures, coupled with the huge rise in the number of applications year on year and the continued growth in the number of unrepresented litigants’.

Both parties are unrepresented in 38% of cases now, an increase of 21% since the legal aid cuts took effect in 2013. Both parties had legal representation in fewer than one in five cases, down from 35% of cases before the cuts.

Edwards said: ‘Unfortunately, there is a perfect storm of factors which is leading the family court ever closer to the brink. 

‘The long-awaited impact assessment of the legal aid cuts continues and the courts modernisation programme is under close scrutiny after the Public Accounts Committee’s scathing report in July.  It is to be hoped that there may be more funding available for initial legal advice, to divert more cases away from the court; and a slowing down of the court closures programme as we stop and take stock.’