Government launches £300,000 web app for divorce
Separating parents will be able to find free advice and guidance through a web app released this week by the government.
‘Sorting out Separation’ provides information about all aspects of separation, from how to avoid a separation to coping with the emotional impact of breaking up, accessing legal or housing support and arranging child maintenance. It includes a link to the Law Society’s solicitor-finding service.
The app, developed at a cost of £300,000 by the Department for Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Justice is offered as a ‘widget’ to be embedded on websites. So far users include Relate, National Family Mediation, Mumsnet, Dad.info, Gransnet and Wikivorce.
Launching the product at the offices of London law firm TV Edwards, work and pensions minister Steve Webb said: ‘Parents tell us they don’t know where to turn for support when they’re going through a separation. A third of British children now live in separated families and it’s vital we help parents to access better advice. Parents working together is in the best interests of the children, and more collaboration helps minimise the impact of separation on them.’
David Emmerson, head of dispute resolution at TV Edwards, said: ‘The Sorting out Separation web app is designed to offer free advice and guidance to separating couples and provides many exciting features such as maintenance calculators, tips on co-parenting and how to resolve family dispute without costly and stressful court proceedings.
‘It is designed for the DIY enthusiast but also promotes mediation and collaborative law as the way forward. We think the app will prove very popular and is a timely resource,’ he said.
A YouGov poll commissioned by the DWP reveals that more than half of parents (52%) find it hard to access help and support they need when they separate. It shows that 39% of parents did not call on professional support when they separated from their partners, which 25% said was because they could not find the right help or support, or felt embarrassed.
Pictured launching the app are DWP minister Steve Webb and Mail on Sunday agony aunt Zelda West-Meads.
Comments
Like using a Band-Aid to treat an amputated limb
Great idea – as far as it goes – and that’s not very far. Is it going to help the vast majority of the tens of thousands of people who will be going through divorce with effect from next April without being able to afford a divorce solicitor in the absence of legal aid, or will it replace personalised legal advice from the court office [now that the government has, with remarkably inept timing, cut the manpower of the court offices and restricted its opening hours]? Of course it won’t.
This is like using a Band-Aid to treat an amputated limb.
Sorry, but am I missing
Sorry, but am I missing something? LASPO comes into force in April, CABs and Law Centres are facing cuts and closures, yet DWP Minister says: "Parents tell us they don’t know where to turn for support when they’re going through a separation" and "it’s vital we help parents to access better advice."
What a load of TRASH. How dare they suggest a web app is going to make up for the ticking time bomb that is LASPO. They don't care two figs about separating parents nor their children. Let no-one be fooled by their lies.
The Computer says yes
This is all depressingly familiar as part of a general attack on the Law.
Land Registry offices being shut down, courts being shut down, funding being shut down- access to justice, being shut down.
So as to mask the pain, members of the public are offered by politicians "quick fix" solutions by suggesting to the public the use of fashionable technology, which feeds the myth that understanding and using the law is as easy as playing a computer game, or buying a can of baked beans.
Who can forget the hilarious idea, put forward at one point by the Land Registry, of having a "traffic light system" to regulate online conveyancing, with a civil servant acting as a "Chain Manager"
Quality Law had people wandering round W H Smiths with Ipads etc, but this trendy stunt only produced as I understand it mixed results.
The Law, in order to achieve justice, is often complex, is often nuanced, is often encrusted with procedural complexity, and encouraging members of the public to think that by using a simplistic phone app, they will achieve closure, in a way which is just for them, could be misleading and may have disastrous consequences, especially if documents were signed, or actions taken or omitted, in reliance on such data, blind to the many traps awaiting the unwary.
The Government is starving the Law of resources, trying to make it even more diffcult for instance for worthy applicants such as community groups to use Judicial Review.
The Government is demeaning and dumbing down the Law as one of the primary supports for our democracy.
Solicitors are critical to ensuring that the transactional aspects of a modern economy work well and are conducted in an ethical manner for the public good.
The President of the Law Society in 2010, Mr Robert Heslett, described the legal sector as being "akin to an ecosystem- interconnected,diverse, finely balanced and inherently fragile."
This delicate legal ecosystem, taken as a whole, is in deep trouble, and we now have the spectacle of politicians seeking, like they did with the Law with the Legal Services Act 2007, subtle ways of controlling a free press. Secret courts have also been proposed.
"Phone justice" is no substitute for real justice.
Or does the computer say: No?
"The Government is starving the Law of resources, trying to make it even more diffcult for instance for worthy applicants such as community groups to use Judicial Review."
This mandate-less government is successfully making it difficult because good lawyers tend to voice their opinions and don't rollover!
£300.000 of taxpayer’s money
£300.000 of taxpayer’s money to build an app, may be they should of spent the money on building an app explaining what they have and haven’t managed to interfere with in the courts, may be they should of used the money on building an app explaining the difficulties of pulling ones head out from ones backside! get with it, how many mp’s would use this app? Not many! Just look at the mess they’ve made of the court system they are not listening, with £300.000 on a web sit shows they don’t give a dam
long live the CAB
It's Not Unexpected
I could see everyone here blaming the government. The government this... the government that... But the government is not really to blame. It is shameful that the legal profession in Britain has through the years been dragged from the mud to the slime pit simply because of the ineptitude of the so-called Law society. Everyone could see that the profession has no responsible body that could do any sensible thing on it's behalf. Hence any politician or governmental body can wake up any day to further bastardize the profession and get away with it. They know the only thing it could do is to moan and kick and then pipe down like a toothless bulldog. Not even in Pakistan or Bangladesh would the legal body put up with the mess that is fast becoming the identity of the legal profession in this country. As someone stated here recently, it is a matter of time before every Jack and Harry would be able to buy or borrow a gown and a wig to defend or represent their chums in British courts!
Under a rock
Yes, that's exactly where separating parents go for advice, an app.
Nearest Weatherspoons is probably best. Get a pint at 8am. Full of seperado's there!
Changing Times
Times are changing. Once divorce was discouraged, and could only be obtained by attending before a judge and giving evidence about the irretrievable breakdown of one's marriage. Lawyers were essential, and Legal Aid was available to help the parties.
Now Legal Aid is seen as a drain on resources, lawyers are considered an unnecessary nuisance, and divorce is easy.
I do not undertake matrimonial work, but wonder if the world is a better or worse place than it used to be.