The scheme, which aims to help families avoid acrimonious separations and free up space in the family courts, launched in March 2021 and has issued 8,400 vouchers so far. According to the Ministry of Justice, about two-thirds of cases reached full or partial agreement away from court.
The extra funding will pay for a further 10,200 vouchers.
According to the Family Mediation Council, which runs the scheme, data from the first 2,800 completed cases showed 50% of participants would not have attempted mediation without the voucher. Some 65% of participants reached a whole or partial agreement and a further 3% only attended court to formalise their agreement.
The Family court statistics quarterly: October to December 2021, published in April show that 58,762 family cases were started in the court during the quarter, down 17% on the same quarter in 2020. The decrease included a 25% drop in matrimonial cases, a 13% drop in financial remedy cases and a 12% drop in private law cases. However, the drop in matrimonial cases may have been driven by couples waiting for the Divorce Act, which introduced no-fault divorce, to take effect in April.
Law Society president I Stephanie Boyce gave a cautious welcome to the extra funding, which she said was ‘just one remedy of many that are needed to address the backlog of cases’. She urged the government also to restore legal aid funding for early legal advice in family cases―legal aid was removed in April 2013 by LASPO (the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012).
Boyce said this would ‘help families swiftly resolve deeply distressing cases that often involve children, as well as ease the backlog of cases in the family courts’.
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