A consultation launched by the Family Procedure Rule Committee wants to look at people’s views on legal bloggers attending family court hearings.

The Committee is headed up by the President of the Family Division Andrew McFarlane, and consists of seven additional judges, one lay magistrate, one justices’ clerk, two barristers, two solicitors and a Cafcass officer.

The consultation has been launched two years after a pilot allowing bloggers into family courts was implemented, and aims to get a better understanding of how people feel about legal bloggers entering these courts and reporting on children proceedings.

The pilot was designed after several Presidents of the Family Division acknowledged a need to increase transparency inside the family courts. The consultation document echoes that same sentiment and says, “where appropriate and possible, there is need to increase transparency in the family court to improve public understanding of the court system. Few judgments are made available to the public and the idea behind giving access to legal bloggers is to allow increased openness whilst maintaining anonymity.”

The consultation invites responses to the following four questions:

Question 1

Do you think accredited legal bloggers should be permitted in to attend hearings in family proceedings?

Question 2

Are there any restrictions that should be put on them alongside any existing restrictions?

Question 3

Under the pilot scheme, the blogger must show evidence that they belong to a professional legal group and sign a declaration that attendance is for “journalistic, research or public legal educational purposes”. Do you think that this provides the necessary safeguards to protect the needs of children and families who are parties to, or subject of, family proceedings?

Question 4

The need to protect the individual who is the party to, or subject of, proceedings, even from inadvertent reporting on social media is paramount. Do you think that the proposals in place under the pilot go far enough in doing so and have you any concerns or suggestions for improving this area?

Submissions should be sent to Simon Qasim at FPRCSecretariat@justice.gsi.gov, or by post at the address below, by 5pm on Friday 20 April 2020:

Simon Qasim

Family Justice Policy

Post Point 7.17

Ministry of Justice

102 Petty France

London

SW1H 9AJ

You can access the consultation document here. 

The Committee’s About Us page is also worth a read, as it contains the Committee’s agendas, members’ interests and Minutes of its meetings.

The President of the Family Division, Andrew McFarlane, has put out a call for evidence, as part of his review of the current reporting and public access regulations for child proceedings.

The initiative is called The Transparency Review, and McFarlane is inviting any person or agency who wants to submit evidence, advice or other material to send it through to his office.

McFarlane has assembled a panel to help him with this process:

• Dr Eia Asen (consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist)
• Anthony Douglas CBE (former chief executive of CAFCASS)
• Clare Dyer (former Legal Editor of The Guardian)
• Nicola Shaw CBE (Executive Director of National Grid).

The website page with details of this initiative explains there are three questions of particular interest that the Review would like information on:

• Is the line currently drawn correctly between, on the one hand, the need for confidentiality for the parties and children whose personal information may be the subject of proceedings in the Family Court, and, on the other hand, the need for the public to have confidence in the work that these courts undertake on behalf of the State and society?
• If not, what steps should be taken to achieve either greater openness or increased confidentiality?
• Do you have any observations on the Practice Guidance: Family Court- Anonymisation Guidance issued by the President on 7 December 2018 and the President’s Guidance as to reporting in the Family Courts, issued on 29 October 2019?

You can send your comments to The President’s Private Office at, pfd.office@judiciary.uk with the headline Transparency Review.

The deadline for submissions is Monday 2 March 2020.

The Civil Justice Council has just launched a consultation which invites respondents to offer feedback on ways in which vulnerable witnesses could be better supported by the courts.

The consultation will look at the current procedures and legislation around vulnerable witnesses in the family courts, and will focus in part on the cross-examination of vulnerable and alleged vulnerable witnesses by proven and alleged domestic violence offenders.

Vulnerable witnesses inside the justice system can include children, victims of sexual abuse and domestic violence and parties with physical and mental health conditions.

While the consultation aims to look at issues arising in both civil and criminal courts in relation to vulnerable parties, the consultation has been launched specifically because  of a recommendation made by the nation’s Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), which was added in its April 2018 Interim Report.

In that report, the IICSA recommended special statutory protections for vulnerable witnesses who had experienced child sexual abuse and who were claiming compensation in civil court cases for that abuse. The panel also advised that those protections should be in line with legislation supporting vulnerable witnesses in criminal courts across the country.

The Ministry of Justice asked the Civil Justice Council to consider the issues raised by the Inquiry’s recommendation and to put together a report.

Though the exact percentage of vulnerable witnesses going through the civil and family courts is not known, in the criminal courts 18% of witness were recorded by the Crown Prosecution Service as either vulnerable or intimidated from 2015 to 2017.

However, a civil court user survey indicated that 25% of individual Claimants who completed the questionnaire said that they considered they had a physical or mental condition.

In the Justice Council’s report, the Council says that there is “clear room for improvement in the way that claims relating to child sexual abuse cases are managed by parties and the Court.” It added , “In undertaking this [consultation], the Council was asked to consider vulnerability of parties and/or witnesses in civil actions not just in relation to claims arising from sexual assault/abuse but also more widely i.e. in relation to the wide variety of other types of civil claim.”

Pages 20 to 33 of the consultation set out the background to vulnerable witnesses inside the family courts, what has been done so far to address concerns about how these witnesses are treated and the current gaps inside these courts when it comes to protecting vulnerable witnesses.

These pages offer a very useful breakdown of how such witnesses have been treated in the family courts historically, new initiatives being implemented, and current legislation being considered like the Domestic Abuse Bill.

The report the Council produces runs to 74 pages, and includes 7 recommendations:

1. Amend the current procedure rules (and any relevant accompanying practice directions) to focus the attention of all civil Judges, parties and advocates upon the issue of vulnerability;
2. Directions Questionnaires should be amended to request information as to the vulnerability or potential vulnerability of a party;
3. Enhanced training of civil judges in relation to issues of vulnerability;
4. HMCTS should review and produce guidance in relation to the use and funding of
   intermediaries in civil cases;
5. HMCTS should ensure that individual court centres/courts should (after consultation with the Designated Civil Judge and Designated Family Judge) prepare comprehensive operational protocols around vulnerable witnesses;
6. As a matter of urgency HMCTS should ensure all staff who handle civil cases are given adequate training with regard to identifying, communicating with and assisting vulnerable court users and;
7. The Judicial College and the CPS should consider the need for guidance /training/re-enforcement of training as to applications for and the making of/refusal to make compensation orders in cases of sexual assault/abuse.

The consultation itself is short, running to just three questions.

These questions are:

1. Are there issues in relation to vulnerable parties /witnesses in the civil courts which that have not been covered/adequately covered within this preliminary report? If so please give relevant details;
2. Do you agree with the proposed recommendations set out at section 7? If not why not? and;
3. Do you believe that there should be further or alternative recommendations? If so please set out relevant details.

Responses to the consultation can be emailed to vulnerableparties-CJC-consultation@judiciary.uk, or popped in the post to:

Civil Justice Council E205, Royal Courts of Justice Strand London WC2A 2LL

The Council also offer the following guidance:

“If you are responding in writing, please make it clear which questions you are responding to. You should also indicate whether you are replying as an individual or submitting an official response on behalf of an organisation and include: – your full name, – your position (if applicable), – the name of organisation (if applicable), – an address (including post-code), – an email address, and – a contact telephone number.”

A list of respondents will be published on the Council’s website, as well as a summary of the responses received.

Deadline for submissions is 23:59 on Friday 11 October 2019.

You can read the Council’s report and access the consultation questions here. 

The President of the Family Division, Andrew McFarlane, has published interim reports relating to proposals for reform within the family courts for both public and private family law cases.

The aim of the project is not to reform the legislation inside the system, instead it hopes to improve the ability of professionals inside the system to apply the current law.

As part of that effort, the Pres has launched a consultation inviting views on how to do this. And he’s looking for members of the public with bright ideas to get in touch.

In his note which has been published along with the reports, McFarlane says:

“My experience in visiting very many Family Court centres during the past 9 months is that some of the best ideas have come from individuals, it is, therefore, my hope that, in addition to organisations and other institutional consultees, individual professionals and members of the public will read these documents and become directly engaged in the consultation.”

If you’d like to get involved, the consultation runs from today, 3rd July, until 30th September 2019.

The main page which houses information on the consultation offers the ways in which you can submit your thoughts:

• Responses to the Private Law Interim Report can be submitted to the President’s Private Office by emailing pfd.office@judiciary.uk with the Subject Header of “PRIVATE LAW: Consultation Response”.
• Responses to the Public Law Interim Report can be submitted via this link.
• Any responses by post, should be sent to : The President of the Family Division, Family Division, Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, WC2A 2LL.

All the documents, including the interim reports, can be accessed here. 

The Home Office made a statement yesterday in The House of Commons, explaining its decision not to go ahead with a legal duty to report child abuse for professionals working with children.

Whilst media outlets are suggesting that the majority of respondents didn’t want to see a duty to report implemented, this is incorrect. What the consultation actually tells us, is that of the 768 responses it received, 63% were in favour of allowing the Government’s existing programme of reforms time to be implemented before considering additional statutory measures. What this effectively means, is that any one of those individuals within that 63% could potentially be in favour of a duty to report. The consultation also tells us that 12% of those who took part in the consultation wanted to see a mandatory duty to report, right away.

The backdrop to this consultation, particularly those who submitted evidence it, is important. Most child welfare sectors would be unlikely to want to see a legal duty to report, as it could lead to individuals within those sectors being penalised and fired for a failure to log any suspected abuse. So asking a group of people who are unlikely to benefit from legislation – and could even be harmed by it – is very silly indeed. The 12% who did want a legal duty to report, was probably not made up of social workers, police men or psychiatrists, but abuse survivors and child welfare charities who work with victims of child abuse.

There is also the problem of handing complex consultations like this one to junior ministers to manage. The end result is the poor logic inside the consultation, coupled with odd soundbites about children’s best interests.

Victoria Atkins, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, and Minister for Women, made the statement on behalf of the Home Office:

“The Minister for Children and Families at the Department for Education and I have today published the Government’s response to the consultation exercise on reporting and acting on child abuse and neglect.

The consultation, which ran from 21 July 2016 to 13 October 2016, sought views on key issues relating to the child protection system and on the possible introduction of one of two new statutory measures, namely:

• a mandatory reporting duty, which would require certain practitioners or organisations to report child abuse or neglect if they knew, or had reasonable cause to suspect, it was taking place; or
• a duty to act, which would require certain practitioners or organisations to take appropriate action in relation to child abuse or neglect if they knew, or had reasonable cause to suspect, it was taking place.
  All children have the right to be safe from harm. Keeping children safe is the responsibility of everyone who comes into contact with children and families, and we all have a role to play in protecting children and young people from child abuse and neglect.

The legal duties the Government consulted on would involve a particular focus on practitioners: across children’s social care, the police, health, education, and other sectors. The vast majority of such practitioners are committed to doing all they can to safeguard and promote the welfare of children, through recognising children’s needs early and taking action so that children receive the right support at the right time.

We are absolutely clear that practitioners should make an immediate referral to local authority children’s social care if they believe that a child has suffered harm or is likely to do so, as set out in statutory guidance already. We know, however, that despite the best efforts of practitioners working with children and families, some abuse and neglect continues to go undetected by statutory agencies. This can happen for a variety of reasons, including failures to report or share information properly and failure to perceive abuse or understand the nature and level of the risk of harm faced by children.

In circumstances where professionals fail to identify or fail to report the signs of abuse and neglect, the consequences can be catastrophic. However, triennial analysis of serious case reviews demonstrates that in most cases the significant harm or death of children occurs despite their being known to children’s social care. So the issues are complex and challenging and introducing a new statutory duty is not a simple, straightforward solution, as some argue.

We received 768 responses to the consultation exercise, from a wide range of interests including practitioners and others in the education, health, social care and local government sectors, children’s charities, survivors’ groups, the police and members of the public. We have considered all the responses and relevant issues carefully.

The majority of respondents (63%) were in favour of allowing the Government’s existing programme of reforms time to be implemented before considering additional statutory measures. Only a quarter (25%) of respondents favoured introducing a duty to act, with less than half of that number (12%) favouring the introduction of a mandatory reporting duty.

Given the consultation outcome and after careful consideration, we have concluded that the case for the introduction of a mandatory reporting duty or a duty to act has not been made, and would not, against the landscape of our current arrangements, deliver better protection for children. Therefore, neither of these proposals will be taken forward at this time. We will implement the reforms set out in the Government’s response and evaluate whether this is having the intended impact once these are embedded, in addition to continuing to assess any new or different evidence supporting the need for further changes.

We remain committed to examining all options to improve further the children’s social care system and tackle abuse in all its forms. In addition to our already wide-ranging programme of reforms, we will therefore focus on taking steps to address the key issues raised by respondents to the consultation. This action includes:

• improving multi-agency working, in particular through strengthening information sharing for safeguarding purposes, including better local arrangements;
• publishing our revised Working Together to Safeguard Children statutory guidance and launching a further phase of the communications campaign, Together, we can tackle child abuse ahead of its publication;
• looking at the current legislative framework to assess whether it is able to deal appropriately with concerns about concealment of child abuse and neglect; and
  continuing our work to improve the training, accreditation and regulation of practitioners, so that they can better safeguard and promote the welfare of children.
• To repeat, every child deserves to, and must be protected from abuse and neglect. We are determined to do all that we can to strengthen our child protection system in ways which we expect will bring real benefits to children.”

Copies of the Government’s response have been placed in the House Library and are available on the Government’s website.