Progress against targets

On this page:

Improving efficiency and relationships
Managing care cases
Pre-proceedings advice
Amendments to the Family Graduated Fee Scheme
Family advocacy fee scheme
Inter-agency steering group
Jointly commissioning health expert witnesses
Local Family Justice Councils

Improving efficiency and relationships

Since beginning this work in 2007 we have made good progress:

established good working relationships between Her Majesty's Courts Service area directors and LSC family leads
improved local liaison with designated family judges.

We sponsored the Children Law UK training events and were represented at each of the 25 sessions.

We are involved in the Public Law Outline both at national and regional levels.

Managing care cases

The Public Law Outline (PLO) replaced the protocol for managing care cases from April 2008.

We introduced accompanying statutory guidance to assist local authorities in preparing care applications.

This will reduce unnecessary delay and put the child at the heart of proceedings by promoting better cooperation between all the parties involved. They seek to:

clarify minimum standards that the court will expect in care applications
simplify processes
improve case management.

Pre-proceedings advice

We have made provision for pre-proceedings advice (Level 2) to:

support the Public Law Outline
ensure that parents and those with parental responsibility have access to legal advice before care/supervision proceedings begin.

We hope:

they will engage or re-engage with the local authority
the local authority will work with them to avoid proceedings
where this is not possible to narrow the issues in proceedings so that they can be dealt with more quickly.

Amendments to the Family Graduated Fee Scheme

We amended this scheme - the method by which Barristers are currently paid - to ensure it takes the Public Law Outline into account.

Work can be remunerated in the same way as under the protocol.

Family advocacy fee scheme

We are working on a fee scheme to cover solicitors and barristers. The aim is to:

bring payments to solicitors and counsel within the same system
make the same payment regardless of who does the work.

Inter-agency steering group

We are participating in an English and Welsh inter-agency steering group to make sure:

implementation of the Public Law Outline is effective
all family justice system participants embed the new practices in their systems

Further work is underway at a local level to:

evaluate the effectiveness of the Public Law Outline
make sure our reform programme is understood.

Jointly commissioning health expert witnesses

We are working on a pilot with the Department of Health to evaluate the effectiveness of jointly commissioning health expert witnesses.

Local Family Justice Councils

We are now members of 34 out of 40 Local Family Justice Councils (LFJCs). They recognise the importance of our membership and role in the family justice system.

We are now involved in debates over issues such as court listing and waiting times. This is a positive step towards building more constructive relationships.

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Last updated: 21 November 2008