This seminar was held on Thursday 13th June 2024 and brought together a range of stakeholders with the objective to find the common ground between those working for reform of the family separation process with the aim of greater campaign effectiveness..
This APPG has conducted an inquiry and published a report – ‘Better outcomes for the children of separating parents.’ with recommendations to create effective reform.
We have found through our inquiry that effective change has been elusive. This is despite the fact a wide range of groups and individuals have been critical of the current family separation process in England and Wales and produced broadly similar reports which propose improvements.
We suggest there are two parallel reasons:
- Responsibility for this vulnerable group is distributed across several government departments
- Whilst there is a lot of agreement between the groups, the differences in emphasis and some vitriolic dialogue are clouding and complicating the case and inhibiting change.
The APPG will be working with government to try to change the first. This seminar brought together a wide range of groups interested in reform to see where we can find common ground on the second.
While parliamentarians know there are serious problems, as they hear them in their constituency surgeries, they often require greater clarity and simplicity in the system.
Seminar outcomes
There are 2 broad areas of concern:
1. The time from when parents decide to separate to when they resolve their differences or go to court
2. The Family Court process
The seminar concluded that, since positive progress was being made in rolling out Pathfinder Courts, the APPG campaigning should be limited to supporting more parents to achieve early resolution without going to court.
The seminar examined 8 potential areas of agreement, but, while there was widespread support for all eight, the seminar concluded that we should focus campaigning on just two for the time-being:
Two objectives
1 Central advice and support
There should be a local place (replicated online) where parents can go for advice and support as soon as they decide to separate. Family Hubs is an example of a good physical space.
The evidence shows that, if support is provided early, more parents reach agreement without going to court, so future court costs are saved. The initial cost of advice and support would be far lower than the cost if the same parents went to Family Court.
The problem is that the cost of the up-front funding for the advice would be borne by one ministry, but the (much greater) saving would be made by another: Justice.
This suggests our second proposal.
2 A central agency (or cross-department minister)
Either an agency within government which worked cross-departmentally or a cross-ministry minister would be responsible for the welfare of children of separating parents from the point where they separate.
Currently, from the time of separation until parents either reach agreement or go to family court, responsibility is spread between several ministries and some children’s needs are overlooked.
Once the parents go to court, the children become the responsibility of the Ministry of Justice. However, for the majority of children whose parents separate without court, their welfare falls between government departments and is overlooked.
Better outcomes at lower cost
These two proposals, taken together would not only save public money, but result both in lower costs to some parents and better outcomes for their children.