Coram Children’s Legal Centre welcomes publication of Family Justice Review.

Coram Children’s Legal Centre is welcoming the publication of the Final Report of the Family Justice Review, released today.

Along with many of the other 600 respondents to the Review, Coram Children’s Legal Centre shares the “deep concern with the way the system currently operates”, and welcomes the findings and recommendations made by the Review to address these concerns.

We welcome the clear commitment to improving the family justice system as a whole, and doing so in a way that confirms that the welfare of the child is paramount. Delays in the family justice system, in which the average care and supervision case currently takes 56 weeks, have a very damaging impact on the welfare of vulnerable children. We welcome the Review’s recognition of the harmful impact caused by delays and the recommendations aimed at reducing them.

However, speeding up the family justice process must not be done at the expense of judicial scrutiny of case plans, and without major improvements to social work practice, as highlighted by the Munro Review.

We also welcome the clear prominence given to the importance of the views of the child within the family justice system. It is essential, in ensuring that the child’s welfare is paramount, that robust procedures and practices are in place to ascertain and give due consideration to the views of the child.

We also welcome proposals to maintain a statutory obligation to ensure that children involved in family justice proceedings have access to a guardian, and to replace the current CAFCASS model of guardianship. However, in replacing the current model, the current delays in appointing guardians must be addressed, and the government must ensure that the needs of individual children are at the forefront of the new system. Any new guardianship system must ensure that a high value is placed on the professional experience and independence of the child’s guardian and in ensuring that the guardian can effectively give voice to the best interests of the child.

We also strongly agree that there should be no presumption of shared residence of children in law. In residence and contact decisions, the focus must be on the welfare of the child, not on the needs and wishes of parents.

We urge the government to implement these proposals in continued consultation with stakeholders and to ensure that any new system is properly and effectively monitored.

Carolyn Regan, Interim Director of the Coram Children's Legal Centre said: "We are very pleased that the FJR recognises that the welfare of every individual child must be paramount and at the heart of all decisions and systems to safeguard children, whether in public or private family law proceedings. We encourage government to continue to involve specialist organisations like Coram Children's Legal Centre in making the rights of the child a reality across the family justice system."

Rachel Jasper

Marketing & Communications Officer
dd:    020 7520 0427