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Scheme to clear family court backlogs expanded with £12.5m funding

04 Feb 2025 2 minute read
Justice minister Lord Ponsonby. Photo Roger Harris, CC BY 3.0

A family court scheme aimed at resolving cases more quickly is being expanded with £12.5 million in funding.

The Pathfinder scheme is aimed at helping to clear the backlog in family courts, and ensure some cases avoid difficult courtroom appearances altogether, the Ministry of Justice has said.

It is being expanded to mid Wales and West Yorkshire, after being piloted in north Wales and Dorset in 2022.

South-east Wales and Birmingham also saw the scheme rolled out last year.

‘Hijacked proceedings’

Justice minister Lord Ponsonby said: “For too long families have been pitted against each other in the court room, or abusers have hijacked proceedings to continue campaigns of cruelty. Children and vulnerable people bear the brunt of this, and it must stop.

“Pathfinder has been welcomed as a less adversarial approach, and early evidence shows it’s working. This is another important step to achieving our promise of halving violence against women and girls.”

The scheme sees councils, police, and support services gather and share information as early as possible in family cases.

This is then used to seek resolutions to family disputes more quickly, and to avoid potentially hostile hearings altogether.

Under the pilot schemes, the average case has reduced by from 29 weeks to 18 weeks in north Wales, and 38 weeks to 27 weeks in Dorset.

The number of open cases has approximately halved in both areas since the beginning of the pilot.


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