Spending watchdog report on family justice delays calls for system-wide assessment of key issues affecting performance
Complex accountability arrangements and limited information on the biggest causes of delays in care proceedings make it difficult to target improvements to where they will have best effect, the National Audit Office has warned.
In a report, Improving family court services for children, the spending watchdog acknowledged that the backlog for family courts had reduced by over a quarter since August 2021 and had recovered much better than crown courts, but said that family justice cases “still take too long”.
It pointed out that the Government’s time limit of 26 weeks to resolve most care proceedings instigated by local authorities to protect a child from harm has never been met since it was introduced in 2014.
The watchdog said: “Delays can mean children waiting longer for permanent care and living or contact arrangements, increasing risk of harm, anxiety, instability and disrupted friendships or education, all of which were reinforced to the NAO by other stakeholders in the family justice system.”
The NAO noted that responsibilities for family justice are dispersed across several government bodies, including the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Department for Education (DfE), His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS), and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) in England, all of whom were audited for the report.
It said: “There is no single body accountable for overall performance, nor is there a shared understanding of what good quality support looks like from the perspective of a child. Due to a lack of joined-up data, at present it is not yet possible to follow a child through the family justice process from beginning to end.”
The watchdog said the Government “does not yet have the data it needs on family justice to understand what the biggest causes of delays across the whole system are, or what the impacts are on different groups”.
In preparing the report, the NAO analysed the findings of performance reviews undertaken by government bodies to identify reasons for delay and inefficiencies in family justice cases.
It said the reviews identified more than 25 different issues, which vary across local areas and between different types of cases, including:
- Increased work required for each case
- Lack of capacity in all parts of the system
- Poor administration (32% of cases had at least one hearing cancelled before it took place, then had to be rearranged)
- Families not being adequately supported
The Government, via the ministerial-led Family Justice Board (FJB), "does not have an overall assessment of the main drivers of delays or the capacity required to manage the system efficiently and reduce delay", the report said.
It also noted that case durations vary significantly by region. “Wales performs best with average durations of 24 weeks for cases brought by local authorities and 18 weeks for cases brought by parents. London and the South-East perform poorly, with London averaging 53 weeks and 70 weeks respectively. In December 2024, nearly two-thirds of the 4,000 cases that had been open for 100 weeks or longer were in London and the South-East, reflecting issues like lower judicial capacity in those areas.”
The NAO warned that delays can lead to even further delays as evidence or assessments need to be updated, and costs grow. “For example, between 2018 and 2022, average spending on legal aid for a case brought by a local authority doubled, from about £6,000 to about £12,000, mainly due to cases taking longer. This represents an annual increase of £314m legal aid spending for these cases.”
The watchdog said that due to the number of organisations involved in family justice it is not easy to identify only family-justice-related costs, as these services share assets and staff with other services.
“Therefore, the government does not know how much is spent on family justice – the NAO estimated the cost to be more than £1.8bn in 2023-24.”
The FJB was established to help organisations work together more effectively, but a high turnover in ministers had led to inconsistent political leadership, the NAO report found, with the Board frequently refocusing its role and priorities.
The NAO did acknowledge, however, that there are various national and local initiatives underway to try and tackle delays.
The report’s recommendations include:
- clear and measurable objectives for better serving children and families and taxpayers;
- a system-wide assessment of key issues affecting performance;
- a review of ongoing and future initiatives to ensure work is joined up and addresses key performance issues; and
- review available support for families through court proceedings and assess opportunities for better support to those without legal representation and families more widely, including how to improve guidance for family court applicants
The NAO said that without a system-wide assessment of where initiatives might secure maximum benefit, departments have a limited understanding of where to prioritise constrained funding.
Gareth Davies, head of the NAO, 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.”
In April this year the Family President, Sir Andrew McFarlane, said progress was being made in bringing care cases within the timeframe of the Public Law Outline, but admitted that the situation in London was “not so rosy”.
In November 2024 the Family Presiding Judge for London, MacDonald J, issued a local practice note, Ensuring Adherence to the Public Law Outline in London.
Sir Andrew suggested that this had been received in a positive manner by the London Family Judiciary and local authorities.
The Ministry of Justice has been approached for comment.
