At last the Government report has been published. It concentrates mainly on the system of the family court process. A summary is provided here with the full report (with its own, more detailed summary) available via the link.
The Government is inviting responses by 23 June. You can respond directly or via Maypole, and we will collect all your ideas in one reply.
It is excellent news that a presumption of 50/50 equal care has beeen rejected. In Australia their Shared Care laws have been shown to increase risk of domestic abuse, increase gender economic inequality and meet mainly fathers' needs.
Thank you to everyone who sent in concerns about the proposals on child maintenance. A Maypole trustee attended a meeting at the House of Commons on 17th March, which was also attended by a number domestic violence organisations. The meeting focused on the unprovable nature of abuse, and the fact many women will be unable to afford the £100 fee.
It's great that Maypole has been so quickly recognised as a credible source of evidence on how domestic abuse presents at separation. With your help, we can ensure women's voices are heard in family law.
we want to ensure your voicve isMaypole's written response looks more closely at how women negotiating with an abusive ex are not able to come to agreements which are in the child's best interests, more about why some women won't be able to afford the fee, and our prediction that the fee will be used by perpetrators as another form of financial abuse - and so will discourage (rather than encourage, as the Government hopes) private agreements.
This will be sent next week, and will be added to our new web site (more about that as soon as we have news). If you would like to read a copy before then please contact us.
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Equality backfires
Nothing sounds more fair than parents being equal. Treated equally, children divided equally at separation.
Yet the drive by fathers’ rights groups for equal care legislation has come to an abrupt halt with yesterday’s report. Research, particularly from Australia, shows that shared care legislation is unfair and unsafe, and increases inequality.
This finding seems such a contradiction, but shows that imposing equality where there is already inequality is not the solution.
A new book, Equality with a Vengeance by Molly Dragiewicz looks at how fathers’ rights groups are trying to erode the gains of the battered women’s movement in the US, as a backlash against feminism.
With improvements planned for the systems of family law, there remains nowhere within UK law to protect women’s right to financial equality and psychological well being at separation.
Children’s well being is linked to that of their primary carer. Yet an understanding of children’s needs remains shaped by contact, rather than the needs underpinning relationships, including primary care and safety.
There is still a lot of work to be done.
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Maypole E News
March 2011
Reform of family law
The long awaited Government report on reforming family law has been published by the Family Justice Review.
A brief summary is available, with a link to the report. The report has an index on the left so you can go straight to the summary and their recommendations. The details of Private (Family) Law is in Chapter Five .
The Government says ‘the system is not working’. Problems identified include:
Children and families do not understand what is happening to them. They can also feel that they are not listened to.
Family justice does not operate as a coherent, managed system. In fact, in many ways, it is not a system at all.
The number of organisations and individuals involved in family justice is large. This makes the task more difficult but the need for effective and coherent working all the greater.
Cafcass now take a length of time that is little short of scandalous.
The family justice system needs robust, accurate, adequately comprehensive and reliable management information to work effectively. It currently has little to none. The lack of management information is astonishing.
Currently almost nothing is confidently known about performance, cost or efficiency. Paper to and within the courts flows in a way that barely reflects even the invention of computers.
The family justice system is also expensive, both for individuals and the state. We have no accurate figures for this, as for so much else about family justice, but we have estimated the cost to government alone (excluding the no doubt significant private costs) as £1.5 billion
The state cannot fix fractured relationship. Court is generally not the best place to resolve these disputes. Where possible, disputes should be resolved independently or using dispute resolution services such as mediation, when it is safe to do so.
Parents who choose to use the court system must understand it will not be a panacea. Courts will only make an order where this is in the best interests of a child. Further, where the court does make an order, this may well not be in line with one or both parents’ expectations or wishes. People need to expect that court should be a last resort, not a first port.
Proposed solutions:
The Government strongly endorse the principles of the Children Act 1989 - children should come first.
No legislation should be introduced that creates or risks creating the perception that there is a parental right to substantially shared or equal time for both parents.
There should be a Family Justice Service, and Cafcass will be moved in to this service.
A single family court should be created, with a single point of entry, in place of the current three tiers of court.
There should be judicial continuity in all family cases, improved training of all professionals involved, and judges and magistrates should be encouraged to specialise in family matters.
Improved quality standards, robust performance information and improved approach to research and evaluation.
A statement should be inserted into legislation to reinforce the importance of the child continuing to have a meaningful relationship with both parents, alongside the need to protect the child from harm.
Residence and contact orders should no longer be available to parents who hold PR, but disputes over the division of a child’s time between parents should instead be resolved by a specific issue order.
An online information hub and helpline should be established to give information and support for couples to resolve issues following divorce or separation outside court.
Safeguarding checks should be completed at the point of entry into the court system. These checks help to identify serious welfare concerns which should, as now, be referred to the local authority.
Having been assessed, parents should be required then to attend a Separated Parents Information Programme, which should include a description of the relevant law, the court process and its likely costs.
Parents should be encouraged to develop a Parenting Agreement to set out arrangements for the care of their children post-separation, covering aspects such as education, health, finance and the arrangements for how the child is to spend time with each parent.
Parents should thereafter, if necessary, attend mediation or another form of accredited dispute resolution, for example collaborative law. The focus will be on providing support for the development of a Parenting Agreement.
The Family Justice Service should also have a role in ensuring the voice of children and young people is heard.
There should be an expectation that children (having regard to their age and understanding) would participate directly in the formation of the agreement by having their views heard in a meaningful way.
Children and young people should as early as possible in a case be offered a menu of options, to lay out the ways in which they could – if they wish – make their views known.
Children should feel consulted on decisions that will affect them, and be informed of the outcomes - especially where these are not in line with their wishes.
Attendance at dispute resolution cannot be compulsory, unlike the assessment and the PIP, but the aim must be that this becomes normality. The mediator will need to be the case manager until it goes to court, if that turns out to be necessary.
Only in cases where parents are unable to agree about a specific aspect of a Parenting Agreement, or in those cases where an exemption is raised by a trained professional, for example, on welfare concerns, will one or both of the parties be able to apply to court.
Mediators should at least meet the current requirements set by the Legal Services Commission. These standards should themselves be reviewed in the light of the new responsibilities being laid on mediators.
Provision should be made to ensure that a signed Parenting Agreement has weight as evidence in any subsequent parental dispute.
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