Family law practitioners could face increased government regulation as ministers are planning another tier of accreditation, it was revealed last week at a specialist conference in Manchester.

Speaking to the Law Society's family law panel, children minister Margaret Hodge said the government's view was that the family law system 'was not working' and that ministers would bring forward a Green Paper including recommendations that the government create an accreditation scheme for solicitors who advise on family matters.


Conference delegates reacted vehemently against the proposal, pointing out that family law practitioners are already well regulated, with many falling under existing schemes operated by the Law Society, the Solicitors Family Law Association and the Legal Services Commission.


Law Society chief executive Janet Paraskeva reacted with caution to Ms Hodge's statement, saying that 'any government accreditation system should not undermine the work of the family law panel'.


Ms Hodge confirmed that the government's intention was to 'do more to keep separating parents from going to court'. She said the Green Paper would flag up methods of promoting increased use of conciliation in family break-ups, with greater reliance on the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). She maintained that the much-maligned agency was improving its service, although she acknowledged that it would be at least another year before it was operating at its originally envisaged level of efficiency.


'We want to change the way in which CAFCASS works,' said Ms Hodge. 'At the moment too much time is spent by CAFCASS on writing reports for court and not enough time is spent on working on conciliation.'


The minister criticised the family justice system for being slow and inefficient. 'Cases currently take about 36 weeks to go through courts - that is a long time in a child's life,' she said. Ms Hodge praised the development of mediation in family law matters, saying that publicly funded mediation cases had grown from 300 being completed a decade ago to some 13,000 having being completed to date. In response, Ms Paraskeva reminded the minister that the Law Society's view was that mediation was not appropriate in all circumstances.


Ms Hodge also indicated that the government rejected the idea of presumed 50-50 contact orders in cases involving children. She said: 'Public debate has become too focused on the competing rights of parents, rather than on the best interests of the children. Children are not goods to be haggled over.'


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