Family law

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The reality of family courts

Harnessing Resolution’s regional practitioner networks to paint a picture of the impacts from the HMCTS Court Modernisation Programme.

About the author: Juliet Harvey FCILEx is National Vice-Chair of Resolution.

Our networks of practitioners throughout the country make Resolution uniquely placed to gather feedback on the reality of family courts for professionals and their clients.

Last June, Resolution ran a survey which found that, on average, four in five professionals reported slower processing of applications, orders and court documents. It showed the impact of court closures, with 88% of respondents who had seen their local court close reporting increased travel time for them and their clients.

The survey also identified a number of other areas that had suffered compared with premodernisation, including issues with listings and the availability of judges/hearing dates; the clarity and relevance of communications from the court; and the ability to access information. This evidence made up the bulk of our submission to the Public Accounts Committee to inform its ‘Transforming courts and tribunals’ work and led, eventually, to recommendations for HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) to improve its evaluation processes to ensure that access to justice is not compromised and to increase its stakeholder engagement.*

Continuing this work, we re-ran the survey in February 2019 to understand what key issues law professionals and their clients face. Over 200 family law practitioners shared feedback on their local court and the HMCTS programme more generally.

So, what did the survey tell us?

Our members are yet to report any improvements as a result of the modernisation programme. Similar to our June 2018 survey, the most prevalent issue faced was delays in processing non-urgent applications, with over 91% of respondents having experienced this.

Of key concern were the increased processing times for finance consent order applications (noted by 71.6%), the sealing of orders (noted by 70.9%) and petitions to decree nisi (noted by 66.9%). Next to delays, 88.4% of respondents also noted issues with communication with the court on individual cases, with 75.3% saying that access via e-mail or telephone was now worse than before the modernisation programme.

Comments pointed to a shortage of staff at the courts and frustration at call centre-type set ups, with excessively long queues when ringing for information. Respondents were asked to feed back on their most frequently used courts for issuing and for attending hearings, and from this we are able to better understand the progress taking place alongside the persistent diÿculties faced across the country.

Ongoing information gathering

We will continue to gather feedback on the state of our family courts, on a regular basis, in order to paint a clearer picture of how the change is impacting professionals and their clients over time. We will also continue to feed this back to the government and HMCTS, aiming to support our campaigning for a fairer family justice system.

• CILEx members are welcome to join Resolution and to feed into our surveys.

For details about becoming a member, visit: www.resolution.org.uk/join

* Written evidence and supplementary evidence submitted by Resolution, available at: http://tinyurl.com/y3u7lows and at: http://tinyurl.com/y595t4n6 respectively