Introduction

The main focus of this chapter concerns the needs for children coming into contact with the family justice system to receive impartial information, to have a voice in proceedings if they so wish and to receive support during the course of proceedings. I consider these issues in the context of fundamental changes in the system. The story underlying this chapter is one where the old regime of family justice administering private family law has been dismantled by radical measures introduced by the Coalition government between 2010 and 2015. I outline the development of these measures in the first part of the chapter (Part A). In the second (Part B) I focus on the new policy framework based on what has been termed the Child Arrangements Programme (CAP), which replaces the old regime. The problems caused by cuts in legal aid are considered separately in Chapter Eleven along with a number of other obstacles which over the years have hindered the development of an efficient, child-friendly family justice system.

Part A: Out with the old

The Family Justice Review, chaired by Sir David Norgrove, described:

Based on a recognition that the family justice system ‘makes lifechanging decisions which affect many thousands of couples, children and families every year’, the ambitious vision of the government, stated by its Family Justice Board in 2013, was for ‘a family justice system that effectively supports the best possible outcomes for all children who come into contact with it’. To this, all one can say is that as of the spring of 2015 (when the Coalition government came to an end) there was still a long way to go to turn this sort of aspirational rhetoric into practical reality nationwide.