Davies: Many cases still take too long
A “lack of consistent political leadership” – because of the high turnover of ministers chairing the Family Justice Board (FLB) – has contributed to the continuing court delays facing families, the National Audit Office (NAO) has found.
The watchdog also found that legal aid spending on public law family cases doubled in only four years, mainly because of cases taking longer in the courts, and that the government does not know how much the system actually cost.
The NAO’s latest report on family justice said the government established the ministerial-led FJB to help organisations work together effectively, improve performance and hold them to account. The FJB met on average 2.5 times a year between June 2018 and December 2024.
“There has been frequent turnover in its ministerial chairs, with each minister attending only three meetings on average, resulting in a lack of consistent political leadership and frequent refocusing of the FJB’s priorities.”
The watchdog said the FJB “does not have an overall strategy to improve family justice” although members had a shared focus on reducing delays.
“The FJB has not articulated a cross-government vision for the future of family justice, what good looks like from the perspective of a child or the taxpayer, or how partners will work together to deliver that vision.”
The FJB introduced targets in 2024-25 to improve case durations and close all cases open for more than 100 weeks. “Performance is improving but the government is only on track to meet one of its five measurable 2024-25 priority indicators.”
Meanwhile, the NAO said delays and more hearings in public family law cases meant higher court costs and increased spending on legal aid.
“For example, between 2018 and 2022, average spending on legal aid for a public law case doubled from about £6,000 to about £12,000, mainly due to cases taking longer. This represents an annual increase of £314m [in] legal aid spending for all public law cases.”
The NAO said the government did not have the data it needed to understand what the biggest causes of delays across the whole system were, or the impacts on different groups.
The NAO identified 25 different issues, including increased work required for each case, lack of capacity in all parts of the system, poor administration – 32% of cases had at least one hearing cancelled before it took place, then had to be rearranged – and families not being adequately supported.
The family courts actually “recovered better than Crown Courts” following the pandemic, and the family court caseload declined by over 18,000 cases or 28% since August 2021.
“Despite this, children and families are still waiting too long to have their cases resolved. The statutory time limit to resolve most public law cases within 26 weeks has never been met nationally since it was introduced in 2014, and some open cases are nearly two years old.
“Delays can lead to more delays as evidence or assessments need to be updated, and costs grow.”
There were over 47,600 outstanding family court cases by December 2024, made up of 10,100 public law cases and 37,500 private law cases.
Responsibilities for family justice are dispersed across several government bodies, including the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, HM Courts and Tribunals Service and Cafcass.
“There is no single body accountable for overall performance, nor is there a shared understanding of what good quality support looks like from the perspective of a child. Due to a lack of joined-up data, at present it is not yet possible to follow a child through the family justice process from beginning to end.”
As a result, the government “does not know how much is spent on family justice” but the NAO estimated it to be more than £1.8bn in 2023-24.
The watchdog recommended that the various bodies, working through the FJB, develop and publish an overall strategy for family justice improvements.
This should include “clear and measurable objectives for better serving children and families and taxpayers”, a “system-wide assessment of key issues affecting performance”, a review of “ongoing and future initiatives” and “a set of measurable performance indicators”.
The group should also “agree a data and evidence strategy to identify data gaps”, review available support for families through court proceedings, and “assess opportunities for better support to litigants in person and families more widely, including how to improve guidance for family court applicants by learning from the guidance available for other court applications and public services”.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, commented: “The government has a range of initiatives to improve family justice services for families and the number of children waiting for court decisions is reducing.
“But many cases still take too long to complete and further action is needed to remove the barriers to a more efficient system, including poor-quality data and fragmented decision-making.”
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