Changes to funding for family mediation

There are huge changes in legal funding available for family cases coming into force in April this year. Legal funding (save in certain narrowly defined exceptional circumstances) will no longer be available for divorce, financial remedy and private children matters. It is expected that this will result in a massive increase in parties navigating their own way through the divorce process and associated court proceedings in relation to the finances associated with the breakdown of their marriage and issues concerning arrangements for their children. This is likely to have a major impact upon the efficiency of the Court process as Court staff and Judges struggle to deal with cases where both parties are unrepresented.

There are however other means of resolving issues in connection with relationship breakdown. One of those is via the process of family mediation. This is one area of dispute resolution the government is investing money in. The government has just this week announced that it is increasing the level of funding available for family mediation from £10 million to £25 million. This is a significant increase. Mediation is a much cheaper method of resolving family disputes as parties pay one mediator’s charges as opposed to two solicitors hourly rates. It is also much quicker than going through the Court process and a qualitative choice for people who do not want to hand over decisions which will undoubtedly have a big impact on the rest of their life to the Courts.

At Winston Solicitorswe offer a comprehensive family mediation service which is run by experienced and accredited family mediators through the Family Mediation Council. We have recently been successful in obtaining the Mediation Quality Mark standard from the Legal Services Commission and can assist those who qualify for public funding in addition to continuing to assist privately paying clients.

For more information please contact the family team on 0113 320 5000