Low-income families eligible could soon struggle to find a mediator to help resolve their dispute away from court unless legal aid fees – which have remained unchanged for 25 years – are raised, a landmark benchmarking report has suggested.

The first-of-its kind report published today by the Family Mediation Council on the state of family mediation says the number of mediators offering legal aid has halved since 2018. Around a quarter of mediators who offer legal aid have stopped taking on new cases in the past year; 55% have signalled they will stop over the next 12 months.

With only 86 services left across England and Wales, the report says the closure of services puts pressure on remaining services to pick up future loss-making legal aid work. Families on legal aid are waiting longer for a mediation information assessment meeting (MIAM) than those who pay privately.

While the government's provision of £500 mediation vouchers has increased the level of public funding to over £9m a year, the report says the voucher scheme serves a different purpose to legal aid. Mediation vouchers assist with the funding of mediation sessions only. Families must pay for a MIAM – which costs around £120 per person - unless one of the parties is eligible for legal aid.

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The report says: ‘Legal aid is at a critical juncture, and change is needed to retain legally aided family mediation services now. If nothing changes, more services will close their doors to legal aid clients and families will not be able to access legal aid for family mediation. This will mean parents remaining in conflict for longer, with adverse effects for children, increased pressure on the court system, some children not seeing one parent, and ex-partners left in financial limbo.’

While mediation helps resolve disputes away from court, the government yesterday sounded a note of optimism over cases that have to go to court.

Statistics covering April to June this year showed that the average time for Children Act private law cases to reach final order was 39 weeks, down nearly a month on the previous year. The average time for a care or supervision case to complete was down three weeks. Justice minister Baroness Levitt said the figures showed ‘promising progress’.

However, Jasmin Talai, a senior associate in the family and children law team at Russell-Cooke, said the proportion of care proceedings not concluding within the statutory 26-week limit was still concerning. A 10% increase in the number of financial remedy applications was ‘troubling’ in light of recent guidance issued by the family judiciary on listing capacity, Talai added.