New Children and Family Bill Announced in Queens Speech

 A new Children and Families Bill has been announced in the Queen's Speech at the state opening of Parliament.

The Bill will implement plans to allow parental leave to be shared between parents, make inter-racial adoption easier, provide greater schooling choices for pupils with special educational needs, and improve fathers' access to their children after divorce.

The government plans to introduce a number of the recommendations contained in the final report of the Family Justice Review. These include:

•  creating a time limit of six months by which care cases must be completed;
•  making it explicit that case management decisions should be made only after impacts on the child, their needs and timetable have been considered;
•  focussing the court on those issues which are essential to deciding whether to make a care order;
•  getting rid of unnecessary processes in family proceedings by removing the requirement for interim care and supervision orders to be renewed every month by the judge and instead allowing the judge to set the length and renewal requirements of interim orders for a period which he or she considers appropriate, up to the expected time limit;
•  requiring courts to have regard to the impact of delay on the child when commissioning expert evidence and whether the court can obtain information from parties already involved;
•  requiring parents in dispute to consider mediation as a means of settling that dispute rather than litigation by making attendance at a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting a statutory prerequisite to starting court proceedings, and;
•  freeing up judicial time by allowing legal advisers to process uncontested divorce applications.

Mark Mosley head of family law at Vincent’s believes that further legislation on this issue of fathers rights must be balanced against the Childs rights. Children should have a relationship with both their parents after family separation, where that is safe, and in the child's best interests. The risk of a change in emphasis should not displace welfare principle which is that at the moment the court has to look at the welfare of the child as the paramount consideration, rather than the rights and interests of the parents. Normally the welfare of the child requires the court to promote a relationship with both parents after separation in any event. There is a danger that what is being proposed relegates that principle.

Mark further adds the government have to make changes because it has stopped legal aid for children contact cases where there is no element of Domestic Violence. Parents in dispute need assistance and if they cannot get that through solicitors an alternative has to be found hence the emphasis on mediation. Mediators will tell you that mediation should not be compulsory what the government is doing by making the attendance at a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting compulsory is hoping the more people find out about mediation the more uptake on a voluntary basis will occur.

If you and your family are effected by any of the issues in this article and feel you need advice call Mark on 0800 310 2000.