The House of Commons Parliamentary Justice Committee held a session on 28 October to look at ‘Reform of the Family Court’.
We’re not sure what was meant by ‘reform’ – this was never specified – but the session had four important witnesses giving evidence:
- Lisa Harker of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory;
- Nicole Jabobs, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner; and
- Jacky Tiotto from Cafcass
– in a panel, followed by a solo slot for Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division. However, the President could be seen listening to the panel beforehand and reflected on this in his replies.
We also spotted the legal commentator Joshua Rozenberg sitting behind the witnesses. He wrote a piece here highlighting the President’s thoughts on the lack of joined-up planning for the Family Drug and Alcohol Courts, despite their obvious economic and social benefits.
You can read the transcript and watch the session in full here: 28 October 2025 – Reform of the Family Court – Oral evidence
We’ll highlight some other critical points:
Lisa Harker observed at the start:
‘performance in the family justice system is almost entirely measured in relation to timeliness. That is a problem in itself, in that we do not have a way of measuring whether the system is effective in terms of improving children’s lives or really understanding the experiences of parents and children.’
Nicole Jacobs said:
‘one of the startling statistics in it in relation to this was that 30% of the volume of the cases we were able to look at were returns to court… The Pathfinder courts create more pressure on the system at the start. They pay off in dividends, but we should be cautious before we prioritise them as an efficiency model. They are meant to be improving the way the court understands and addresses domestic abuse ,,, If a by-product of that is that they are more efficient and have that impact, that is wonderful, but the primary measure we should be looking at is the quality of the work in those courts.’
Lisa Harker:
‘We struggle with having a really strong governance structure to be able to solve (delay) problems at a local level. They are not things that can be solved by pulling levers nationally on their own, they also need very strong local governance, and that is lacking in the family justice system at the moment… we do not really have a strategy for the family justice system—a set of clear objectives that everybody buys into—it is a complex system involving lots of different public services. There is no one body that holds that strategy and holds the system to account. We also have two Government Departments that have responsibility for children who come through the family courts, and they are not working together very closely to solve some of these issues.’
Lisa was talking about England here, as the situation is different in Wales but Wales wasn’t mentioned at all in the session, perhaps because there were no Committee members from Wales.
Jacky Tiotto said:
‘Following the Public Accounts Committee recommendations, we need to sign up to a strategy; the Family Justice Board has said it will and is intending to prepare one…. On the strategy, we have to start with what are the outcomes we expect in family justice for children and for their parents. It is a worry that we have a system that does not know what happens at the end of proceedings, because we invest a whole public service architecture behind it. Nevertheless, it would take even more resource to establish what those outcomes are, because for Cafcass, we finish when the court case finishes. We do not know what happens to the kids unless they come back. It needs thought and resource, but it is important for us to consider why we do not know what happens, and as Nicole said, 30% come back, which is a huge number.’
A number of observations were made about the potential of Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill (currently going through Parliament) to identify extended family carers earlier when either child protection concerns or problems for separating parents arise – while ensuring domestic abuse victims are protected. A discussion followed on the use of family courts to perpetuate abuse and the role of the Pathfinder courts.
Nicole Jacobs was enthusiastic about the Pathfinder, and about progress that had been made in practice in Cafcass and about the imminent repeal of the presumption of involvement, but reported frustration with progress since the Harm Report recommendations. One of her greatest concerns was the continual reference in courts to ‘historic abuse’:
‘The notion that somehow, if the physical violence or the absence of someone in your life for a relatively short period of time means that in court it is considered historical, is still a huge problem for children. That is why we must tune in and have the ability to get to know the child, as Jacky said, to understand the impacts and their view, get beyond some of the labels and really understand what any kind of reluctance could be about. We really owe it to them because these are life-changing decisions that courts are making.’
Jacky Tiotto expressed concerns about the Private Law Portal that is currently being piloted in four courts – especially when the ‘system went down’ and court applications were not being received by Cafcass for a number of days.
On digital programmes, Lisa Harker said:
‘At the moment, there is no join-up between this collection of useful data and a strategy for how it is going to be used to help the system understand its performance. It is difficult to see how this new modernisation programme results in better KPIs for those working in the system, or indeed for the public to be able to see what is happening.’
Sarah Russell MP asked: ‘This may not be within your sphere of knowledge, but do you know if there was a plan for how the data outputs would be used?’
Lisa Harker: ‘If there was one, it has never been shared with us. I suspect there was never one.’
As this part of the session came towards an end, Anna Dixon MP asked:
‘You will be pleased to know that the Public Accounts Committee has asked specifically that we get a joined-up data and evidence strategy within six months, with all the various parties working together on that. Given everything you have said, and all the reports over more than a decade setting out the gaps in data, other than a more comprehensive set of demographics, which we will take as a given basic need, what would be your top pitch as to what KPI or bit of data you think is most important when it comes to outcomes, as you have all talked about the need to move away from timeliness to outcomes? Can each of you please pitch for what you would like to see in the evidence and data strategy?’
Lisa Harker:
‘In terms of outcomes, we need to move towards a measure of children’s wellbeing which we do not have currently in the system. In the interim, as a proxy measure, I would like to see recurrence measured in public law cases. I would also add that we need to look at inequalities because, for example, we do not currently explore racial inequalities.’
Nicole Jacobs said: ‘we do not have the ability to know right now how often domestic abuse is raised as a harm.’ And Jacky Tiotto: ‘I would like us to measure the extent to which children feel their wishes and feelings have been taken into account’.
Evidence from Sir Andrew McFarlane
Most of the questions to the President were about the length of proceedings. He was obliged to set out quite a lot of the history of the 26 week statutory time limit and related issues. As mentioned above, he expressed regret that Government was not making FDACs sustainable.
The session moved on to mediation in private law during which the President said he was disappointed that since the requirement to attend a MIAM (Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting) had been tightened up, the attendance numbers had increased by only about one per cent. He thought about 60% of parents who did a MIAM went on to mediate.
These figures are a little different to those given by MoJ staff at the recent Family Procedure Rule Committee meeting we attended – but the President hadn’t brought stats with him to the session, and he explained he was citing figures from memory. It didn’t seem that the witnesses had been given a steer as to what they would be asked about.
The President was asked about the Pathfinder courts and he said that the rollout of the model was going to be incremental because backlogs of cases had to be cleared first. The worst backlogs were in the south east of England, partly because that was the area with the highest number of vacancies for District Judges.
Transparency
Although transparency in the sense of collecting data and being more open about practice were matters touched upon, the Open Reporting Provisions weren’t mentioned as a reform until the President said:
‘The one thing I have not mentioned is transparency. You will know that we have opened up the court, and it is now part of business as usual that journalists can come in and report what goes on, without naming anybody. Being transparent is much more than simply letting journalists in; it is an attitude of mind. I have been prepared to go on the radio and give interviews to journalists in a way that judges probably have not before, because the public have a right to understand what we are doing on their behalf. I think being transparent will continue and continue to be something that needs to be looked at. I hope you all visit your local family courts. I hope I have encouraged all the local judges to ask their individual MPs to come in. I am sure MPs visit the local schools and local hospitals, so why not the local family court? Journalists should come into the local family court, not just to report a story—which of course they can—but to see what goes on and what makes it tick. We were called the secret family justice system or the secret family court, and I do not think that can be applied to us now. We do not want to be secret. That change has been a big one in my time.’
Those of our members who are (were) on the Transparency Implementation Group (TIG), have noted the cessation of meetings of the group and its subcommittees, and so for us these comments from the President seem to confirm that the work of the Transparency Review and the TIG is deemed to have come to an end, although many of the proposals (such as an Anonymisation Unit to achieve the President’s aim of a higher number of published judgments) have not been implemented and the TIG has not been formally wound up.
The President confirmed that he will be retiring in Easter next year and the Chair of the Committee thanked him for his input to their inquiries.
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