At a time when the debacle of the Child Support Agency is still fresh in the minds of his parliamentary colleagues, the Lord Chancellor is to be congratulated on grasping the nettle of divorce reform.

The basic principles underpinning the proposals contained in the white paper merit the broad support they have received from the Solicitors Family Law Association (SFLA) and others since the Law Commission first mooted them.

However, it is the way in which these changes are implemented and funded that will determine whether Lord Mackay achieves his stated objectives.The current requirement to demonstrate irretrievable breakdown by proving one or more of a mixed bag of fault and separation-based facts is at best illogical and at worst destructive.

Parties should instead be helped and encouraged to channel their energies into planning for the future rather than dwelling on the past.

A statement of breakdown, followed by a year's wait, provided it is used constructively, will reduce hostility and cut costs.It is clearly important for people to have objective and consistent information about the process of divorce and the various services available.

However, there are more cost effective and less public ways of providing this information than the group session that the government is proposing.

The white paper acknowledges that many of those experiencing family breakdown feel ashamed or embarrassed.

How will they feel if they have to sit in a room with others, watching a video, before they are able to start their divorce?The government has taken up the SLFA's suggestion that legal advisers should be obliged to give information about other services and to make referrals, where appropriate.

We will have to certify that we have done so.

Others should have the same obligation.

It would be much better if the prescribed information envisaged in the white paper could also be provided on an individual basis by a range of those professionals to whom people may turn first, such as mediators, counsellors and family lawyers.

They should be trained and accredited for that purpose and could still provide the certificate required to start the divorce.

This would be more flexible and less costly and would have the added advantage of getting the information to both parties rather than just to the one initiating the process.The main concerns in the white paper, however, centre around the way in which it deals with the provision of legal advice and its relationship with mediation, particularly in those cases where one or both parties need legal aid.

The SFLA has grown up with mediation and continues to promote it actively.

It sits comfortably with the SFLA's conciliatory approach and many of our members are already trained mediators.

It is right that the government should want mediation to play a more central and formal role in the divorce process.

The white paper recognises that mediation is not appropriate for everyone but, although it could certainly help many more couples than it does at present, the feeling persists that the government believes, or at least hopes, that it will suit rather more people than in practice will prove to be the case.The heavy hand of the Treasury is much in evidence in the paper.

There was never going to be any new money for the proposed information sessions and the greater emphasis on mediation.

Everything is to be paid for from the existing legal aid budget and, accordingly, there will be less money for independent legal advice.

The government rationalises this by suggesting that increased mediation justifies a much more peripheral role for the family lawyer.

We are to be used for early, preliminary advice; where mediation is not appropriate or breaks down; and, at the end, to draw up legally enforceable agreements or orders.

Despite the potential for conflict of interest, it seems that parties are going to be able to use the same solicitor for that purpose.

We are told that parties do not need, and will not be given legal aid for, representation by their own solicitors when mediation is taking place.The government says that it does not want lawyers 'shadowing' the mediation and going over the same ground.

It also wishes to avoid the possibility of mediated settlements being 'unpicked'.

It quotes research to the effect that most agreements are endorsed when taken to the p arties' solicitors, but fails to appreciate that this was a fairly limited sample and that, more importantly, the majority of the couples involved will also have had their own solicitors, something which mediators themselves strongly encourage.

The government conveniently omits to mention that the same research showed that couples in mediation welcomed the ability to rely upon their own solicitors for reassurance during mediation and to protect them against unfavourable settlements.If only one of the parties in a mediation has legal advice, there will be an imbalance which the mediators, who are not there to advise the parties individually, will be unable to overcome.The government's stated objectives in reforming divorce are to save savable marriages, to ensure that people understand the process and the consequences of their decisions and to minimise bitterness and hostility.What is missing from this list is the need to protect the individual and to strive for a fair settlement.

Divorce is, and will remain, a legal process.

Legal advice is essential if the more vulnerable in relationships are not to be exposed to the stronger.

The way forward is for the different professionals in the field - mediators, counsellors and family lawyers - to work in partnership.

The Lord Chancellor's commitment to a fairer and more civilised divorce system will then have a better chance of bearing fruit.