LNB NEWS: Changes to the operation of the London Financial Remedies Court

• an identified list of district judges and ‘nested’ deputy district judges will continue to carry out London FRC work in the courts other than the CFC, otherwise work done by recorders and deputy district judges will be carried out in the Central Family Court or the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ)
• a significant number of additional courts have been reserved in the RCJ for this purpose and it is expected that a significant number of cases will be brought from other courts into the CFC or the RCJ as a listing exercise to facilitate a more expedited service for court users and to clear some of the existing backlogs which have created long delays in some courts—in the initial tranche, more than 800 cases, many of which had exceptionally long waiting times, have been given earlier dates in the RCJ as part of this scheme
• each case will have a ‘preferred venue’, which will usually be the address of the applicant’s home or, where the case has been allocated as a complex case, the base court of the allocated judge, and wherever possible the case will be listed at the preferred venue or if there are no hearing slots available at the preferred venue within the desired timescale then the case should be listed at another court within the London FRC, with the first choice for an alternative court being a listing in a ‘twinned’ court (ie Croydon + Bromley, Romford + East London, Kingston + Brentford, Uxbridge + Willesden, Barnet + Edmonton), but failing the availability of a hearing slot available at the twinned court then the case should be listed in the CFC or one of the new RCJ courts

The overall aspiration of the changes is that all London FRC cases, and not just those in the CFC, should be promptly offered hearing dates within a timescale which enables cases to be concluded at the financial dispute resolution (FDR) appointment, or if necessary at a final hearing, within a reasonable timetable. While these timetables will have to be kept under review and there will be reasons why it will not work in every case, the aspiration is that for all London FRC work:

• the date for the next hearing for any case will be fixed on the day of the current hearing
• it will be the norm for a court-based FDR to be offered within approximately four months of a first appointment
• where a final hearing is necessary after an unsuccessful FDR, a date for a one to two-day final hearing will be offered within four to five months and a date for a three or more day final hearing will be offered within approximately six months, and
• it will be a rare event for a listing to be pulled by the court once it has been fixed

In addition, the guidance highlights that a large majority of contested London FRC cases are already issued on the HMCTS digital portal, in addition to the 100% of consented cases which are already issued on the digital portal and that in the last few weeks there has been a communications exercise, both nationally and in London, to move practitioners towards the position where not only the issuing of proceedings, but also the filing of all documents in the FRC must be done on the portal. As the Family Procedure Rule Committee has now approved a mandation date of 31 January 2023 for the online portal, it will not be long before the hub administration refuse to receive documents save by their being loaded on to the portal and practitioners must therefore start to do this.

Regarding the drawing up of orders in contested cases, the process for ensuring that London FRC orders are drawn up, approved by the judge, entered on to the portal, sealed and sent out to the parties from the start date will be overseen and administered from the CFC. Disputes about the form of an order should ordinarily be dealt with in off the portal email communications with the judge. Once the judge has approved an order, they will have the option of uploading an approved order to the portal themselves or sending it to a member of the administrative staff for uploading. Unless the FRC judge specifically asks for a draft order to be uploaded to the portal, practitioners should not do this.

In relation to allocation and gatekeeping, where a solicitor identifies a case as complex at the outset then a request for the case to be treated as such, and the reasons for it, should be part of the completion of the Form A. Any case designated as ‘complex’ at the gatekeeping stage will be allocated to a judge on the complex cases list and that named judge will be expected to see the case through to completion (with any court-based FDR being dealt with by another judge on the complex list, although a lot of these cases have private FDRs).

As to whether hearings will be attended or remote, the guidance states that in terms of the choice between remote and attended hearings, the listing will ordinarily follow the recommendations of the Farquhar report, ie the default position (subject to a different judicial decision on the facts of a particular case) will be that FDRs and final hearings will be listed as attended hearings and first appointments and other directions hearings not involving live evidence will be dealt with remotely. The hearing notice should make clear the venue of the hearing and the nature of the hearing (attended or remote) and a remote hearing should mean a hearing on a video platform (ie Teams or CVP), not on the telephone (save, very exceptionally, where there is really no other option).

Regarding appeals, the guidance states that all appeals from district judge level to circuit level should be issued at the administrative hub, ie at the CFC, and dealt with there for triaging and administration and allocation to a circuit judge within the London FRC.

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