The Chancellor’s announcement of spending cuts in the Comprehensive Spending Review includes some swingeing cuts in family justice and children’s policy. 

Families Need Fathers (FNF) recognises that in the current financial and economic climate the Government judges that such cuts are necessary. What would be disastrous would be to apply these cuts across the board, paying no attention to whether individual activities improve the lives of children and the family justice system, or damage them. We welcome the Chancellor’s ambition to reform the public services in ways that are fair and reflect the 21st century, not the 1950s. There can be no finer example than the Family Justice System.

Craig Pickering, Chief Executive of Families Need Fathers, said: “The government can save around £100 millions a year while making significant reforms of the family justice system. We need the scalpel, not the hatchet.”

FNF’s view is that the Government can reform the family justice system while achieving significant savings.  These can be made in three main ways. 

First, what is needed is a presumption of shared parenting. 60% of women who divorce go onto welfare benefits immediately. A presumption of shared parenting would result in more children having both parents fully involved in their lives, and this means more financial support by parents, more time for both parents to work and less pressure on the welfare budget.

Second, the Government needs to reform the legal aid system so as to balance access to the family courts while ensuring that one parent does not abuse legal aid and the courts to deprive the child of the other parent’s involvement in their life. Approximately a quarter of the £2.2 billion legal aid budget is spent on family cases and this has been slowly increasing. 

Third, the private law functions of Cafcass, the service that advises judges in family law cases, should be slimmed down and re-focused to investigate fully the private law cases where there are allegations of abuse, and taken out of the majority of cases where Cafcass is not needed. 

Some of these savings should be used to provide better education for divorcing and separating parents and mediation. That is a much better way forward in the great majority of cases. 90% of family cases are agreed through mediation in Sweden, which is cheaper and quicker than the alternative of going to court.

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