Delays to family justice cases increasing risk of harm to children – watchdog

The UK Government must do more to tackle delays in family justice cases which can increase the risk of harm to children and cost to the taxpayer, the public spending watchdog has warned.

The National Audit Office (NAO) has said more than 4,000 children were involved in family court proceedings lasting for nearly two years or more by the end of last year, and the Government does not have the data it needs to understand what is causing the most delays.

Longer cases can mean children wait longer for permanent care or living arrangements and may experience anxiety and disrupted friendships and education.

The legal time deadline of 26 weeks for cases brought by local authorities to be completed has never been met nationally since it was set by the Government in 2014, the watchdog found.

Public law cases

Instead, public law cases – which are brought by local authorities to protect a child from harm – lasted 36 weeks on average in 2024.

There is no statutory time limit for resolving private law cases, which involves disputes between parents such as living or contact arrangements for their child, but the average was 41 weeks last year.

In a review of cases, the NAO discovered issues for the delays included poor administration and families not being properly supported.

However, the watchdog found the backlog in family courts, unlike crown courts, has recovered better since the pandemic and reduced outstanding cases by 28% from its peak of 65,743 cases in August 2021.

This is partly because demand for family court has fallen over the period, but also ministers increased funding and court sitting days in 2020 to 2021 to help cut the backlog.

Initiatives

Head of the NAO, Gareth Davies, said: “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.”

The NAO report also revealed the Government does not know how much is spent on family justice because of the number of organisations involved, but the watchdog estimates the cost to be more than £1.8 billion in 2023 to 2024.

Delays have also meant average spending on legal aid in a public law case doubled between 2018 to 2022 from approximately £6,000 to £12,000, mainly because cases were taking longer.

This is an annual rise of £314 million in legal aid spending for all public law cases, the watchdog said.

The NAO has set out recommendations for the public bodies involved in family cases in England and Wales including the Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) in England.

These include a review of support available for families through the court process and an assessment on what are the key issues affecting performance within the whole system.

Suffering

Reacting to the report, chairman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, said: “Too many children are suffering as a result of delays to family court proceedings, which are currently still far too long.

“The longer a case remains unresolved, the more likely it is that there are further delays, increasing the risk of harm to children and driving up public costs.

“Improvements to data collection and the implementation of a cross-government strategy are needed to achieve better experiences for children and their families in family courts.”

The Ministry of Justice has been contacted for comment.