High hopes and hard times following the Family Justice Review 2011

Mavis Maclean CBE  Department of Social Policy and Intervention  University of Oxford

The delay and distress for parents resorting to the Family Justice System to make the necessary arrangements following separation were clearly described together with plans for change in the Family Justice Review 2012. The ideas still command widespread respect and admiration despite the failure so far to implement change

Sadly the Review took place shortly after the financial crisis of 2008 when any policy initiative needed to reduce not increase expenditure eg by reducing access to court using online information and mediation. Neither was successful. And in 2013 the Legal Aid and Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act removed legal aid for private family law matters. Government had assumed that the legal profession was stimulating access to court funded by legal aid. But in 2000 Maclean and Eekelaar’s research found solicitors to be aiming for negotiated settlement out of court. The increased cost of family legal aid was in fact due to the rising divorce rate.

We need to learn more about the realities! 

Read the full article in Family Law Journal on L+UK® (subject to subscription) here.

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