The Chief Executive of Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service announced this week that litigants-in-person “have not actually increased the court budget or the demands on the court”. Some have suggested more unrepresented people have not lengthened proceedings as a whole.
I thought I’d have a look at the actual statistics and contemplate what that means for child welfare. Continue reading Where have all the parents gone?
Last week we announced national statistics for non-molestation orders. Ministry of Justice (MoJ) supplied data indicates an explosion in applications in Birmingham’s County Court and Family Proceedings Court and it’s been the focus of a great deal of conversation. A reasonable question posed was “Would an increase in applications for family cases explain the increase in non-molestation orders being made?”
The simple answer is no. If anything, comparing applications for these two types of order makes the numbers look even more extraordinary.
Continue reading Poles apart: Midlands Non-Molestation and Residence Order data
Last week we published data for the Midlands and North West, received from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Ministry of Justice concerning non-molestation orders and applications made under civil legal aid. We suspected that applications might have increased since the introduction of the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO). Such was the opinion of others we have spoken to.
The Act limited legal aid in private family law cases to ones where domestic violence was alleged. To provide a meaningful analysis, we’ve compared data between the first half of 2012 (before LASPO) and the first half of 2014 (after LASPO came into force in 2013).
Numbers for the Midlands and North West show a dramatic increase in applications in certain regions. Today we look at the South of England, and national statistics are provided below as a reminder of the national position. Continue reading The Growth in Applications for Non-Molestation Orders: Spotlight on the South of England
In yesterday’s article we shared how the growth in non-molestation order applications in the Midlands appears quite staggering. Today we’re sharing top level statistics for the national picture and North West in particular. There’s also something very odd related to Ministry of Justice (MoJ) statistics for Family Proceedings Courts. Continue reading Non Molestation Orders – The National Picture, North West Anomaly and FPCs
In 2013 the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishments of Offenders Act (LAPSO), came into force. One area of law affected was private family work, with legal aid being cut with the exception of cases where domestic violence was alleged. There were concerns that this might prompt a rise in false allegations as a means to secure free legal representation. So has there been a stark increase in applications for non-molestation orders?
Last week, we received a copy of data from a Freedom of Information Act request to the Ministry of Justice on Civil Legal Aid and Applications for Non-Molestation Orders and have finally had a chance to ‘crunch’ the numbers.
There’s something odd about the Midlands Continue reading Non-Molestation Orders and Legal Aid – Time for Investigation
Of interest to those involved in cases involving international child abduction, the unlawful retention of children abroad, applications for leave to remove, and applications for temporary leave to remove, comes new data from the United States on state non-compliance in respect of the children’s return. Continue reading New US Data on Child Abduction and International Non-Compliance
In case you missed it, an article in Time Magazine discusses research from the Centre for Health Equity Studies in Stockholm into the positive benefits of post separation shared living arrangements on child well-being. The article is linked below: Continue reading Time Magazine – New Swedish research confirms the benefits of shared parenting
