A week in family law
My selection from this week’s mixed bag of family law-related stories:
An inquiry into fostering in England has been launched by the House of Commons Education Select Committee. The inquiry will look at a range of fostering issues including the recruitment and retention of foster carers and concerns over reductions in the number of available foster care places. It will also examine the support for and treatment of foster carers, the involvement of young people in their foster care, and the increased role of private companies (independent fostering agencies), in providing children’s foster care. The inquiry has been announced at a time when the number of looked-after children is higher than at any point since 1985, when the number of available foster care places has decreased, and when foster carer recruitment has slowed.
Information about visitors and their use of the Sorting out Separation website, from its launch in December 2012 to December 2015, has been published by the Department for Work and Pensions. The website is for parents dealing with divorce or separation, helping them prioritise their needs and signposts them to relevant expert help. The site is a main part of the government’s attempt to provide legal advice to those who would have been eligible for legal aid prior to the legal aid cuts. The statistics show that nearly 266,000 unique users visited the website, and that of them nearly 61,000 engaged with the website, by going beyond the home page to access support services. All very helpful I’m sure, but hardly the same as having a lawyer acting for you.
The Court of Appeal has handed down an important judgment dealing with the issue of a bankrupt’s pension and whether the trustee in bankruptcy can force the bankrupt to elect to take his pension in order to repay his creditors, in the case Horton v Henry. It’s all a bit complicated, but I have explained it as best I can here in this post. As I said there, the decision has implications for financial remedy claims, especially for spouses seeking to make a claim against their ex’s pension, where their ex has been made bankrupt.
The charity National Family Mediation has published figures revealed by the Ministry of Justice under a Freedom of Information request that show that only one in five separating couples abide by the requirement which makes the consideration of mediation compulsory. Since April 2014 attendance at a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting (‘MIAM’) has been compulsory, before a separating couple could apply for a court order in divorce proceedings. However, data from the request shows that according to latest figures over two years on, only a fifth of separating couples making court applications undertake a MIAM. Another example of the failure of the government’s post-legal aid policy – mediation to resolve family disputes rather than going to court was the flagship of that policy.
The National Audit Office has published a report examining the Department for Education’s progress in improving the quality of help and protection services delivered by local authorities for children since 2010, when it recognised that child protection services were not good enough. The report concludes that the actions taken by the Department since then have not yet resulted in services being of good enough quality. Amongst the report’s findings were that nationally the quality of help and protection for children is unsatisfactory and inconsistent, suggesting systemic rather than just local failure; that children in different parts of the country do not get the same access to help or protection; and that the Department’s initiatives have not yet resulted in good outcomes. All pretty depressing stuff.
Cafcass has published its latest figures for care applications and private law demand, for the month of September 2016. In that month the service received a total of 1,216 care applications, which is a 23 per cent increase compared to those received in September 2015, and a record for the month of September. As to private law demand, Cafcass received a total of 3,588 new private law cases, which is a 19 per cent increase on September 2015 levels. And up they continue to go…
And finally, a tale with a simple moral: if you’re going to marry someone, it’s probably best to get to know them a little first. Unfortunately for one Emirati woman she didn’t find out that her husband was a heavy pipe smoker until after her wedding. Now, just three months into the marriage, fed up with the constant clouds of smoke produced by the pipe, she has filed for a divorce. Clearly, living together before marriage does have its advantages…
Have a good weekend.
Photo by i_yudai via Flickr under a Creative Commons licence