Pressure grows in the family courts

According to the Family Court quarterly statistics for October to December 2017, 37% of disposals in private law cases involved unrepresented parties on both sides, the highest on record.

Jo Edwards, partner and head of family at Forsters, said: ‘Couple this with the general increase in the number of applications in private law cases in the recent past, and what one sees is a clogging up of the system by those without representation who, with access to even a little publicly funded legal advice at the outset, may have been signposted into mediation or given information which would have helped them settle their case. 

‘There are also, of course, the unknown numbers who (without legal aid) simply give up and do not pursue money claims or rights to see their children.  Through the additional burden on the court of those who pursue claims unrepresented, and the cost to the state of those who don’t, it is clear that there needs to be an urgent impact assessment of the legal aid cuts made five years ago to try to quantify whether there has really been any saving when taking into account these costs; and whether some limited funding for initial advice should be reintroduced.’

Edwards said other worrying indicators included a gradual increase in the length of time taken to resolve public law/care cases; and the length of time to resolve private law children cases.

The statistics show it took an average of 23 weeks for a private family law case to reach a final order, an increase of a week on the previous fourth quarter.

In care proceedings, however, it took an average of 28 weeks for a care or supervision case to reach first disposal—breaking the 26-week rule for care cases brought in by the Children and Families Act 2014. Some 57% of cases were disposed of within 26 weeks in 2017, down 5% year on year.