The report, ‘Improving family court services for children’, published last week, considers both public and private family law proceedings involving children. It found the statutory time limit for public law cases of within 26 weeks has never been met nationally since it was introduced in 2014.
As of December 2024, more than 4,000 children were in proceedings lasting nearly two years or sometimes more. Delays breed delays as evidence and assessments need to be updated, and costs grow. For example, between 2018 and 2022, average spending on legal aid for a case brought by a local authority doubled, from about £6,000 to about £12,000, mainly due to cases taking longer. The NAO assessed this as representing an annual increase of £314m in legal aid spending for these cases.
There is regional variation—Wales performs best, with averages of 24 weeks for public cases and 18 weeks for private cases. London, on the other hand, averaged 53 weeks and 70 weeks, respectively.
However, complex accountability arrangements and limited information on the biggest causes of delays make it difficult to target improvements, the NAO found.
Nevertheless, the NAO noted the pathfinder pilot currently underway in five areas has yielded promising results to date.
Barbara Mills KC, chair of the Bar Council, urged the government to ‘spend to save’ by investing in pathfinder courts.
‘While local authority costs increased in the pilots, direct judicial costs halved,’ Mills said. She called for ‘a much more joined-up approach’ and highlighted that one party in four out of ten cases last year was unrepresented.
Law Society president Richard Atkinson said: ‘When cases are resolved quickly, fewer complexities develop and fewer court applications are needed, reducing overall costs to the taxpayer.’
