House of Commons

Constitutional Affairs  Minutes of Evidence

Tuesday 18 January 2005 Members present: Mr Alan Beith, in the Chair Peter Bottomley Mr Clive Soley Ross Cranston Keith Vaz Mr Hilton Dawson CONTENTS Examination of Witnesses Question Number 346 to 440 Baroness Ashton of Upholland, a Member of the House of Lords, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs, and Rt Hon Margaret Hodge MBE, a Member of the House, Minister for Children, Young People and Families, Department for Education and Skills, examined. 18 JANUARY 2005 BARONESS ASHTON OF UPHOLLAND AND RT HON MARGARET HODGE MBE, MP   Q346 Chairman: Good morning, Mrs Hodge, Baroness Ashton. As you know, the Committee has been working on this issue for some time. Why did you decide to make a statement of policy on the day you were due to give evidence to the Committee and just before you did so? Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Can I first of all apologise, Chairman, that the venue change was not given to you, as it should have been, so that you were not able to attend. I know I have sent to you the notes of Lord Falconer's opening remarks, but I can only apologise. It was a cock-up. It should not have happened. The reason was one of logistics. We were ready to give the statement and, as you know, it is quite important to tiMETAble these things in consultation with colleagues across government. We ended up in the position where this was the best day in order to get the kind of coverage this issue deserves. We did, of course, talk to your clerk and make sure that the Committee was fully informed, and I was delighted the Committee was able to alter the timing in order to facilitate that.   Q347 Chairman: We altered our timing so that we could know what was happening in the press conference, which you then moved without telling us.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I have already apologised for that unreservedly.   Q348 Peter Bottomley: As a matter of interest, when were the press told it was being moved?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I think we would have to consult our press officers, but I assume during the last 24, 48 hours. It should have been reported to you. There is no excuse for it. I cannot give you an excuse for it. It was a cock-up.   Margaret Hodge: I think the reason for it, just to put it into context, was the security arrangements. Clearly you should have been informed. I think we both sincerely regret that you were not.   Q349 Chairman: We have gone to some trouble to make some security arrangements for your benefit.   Margaret Hodge: I know you did. Thank you very much.   Q350 Chairman: A decision we made, indeed, when you were subject to an attack. All our subsequent meetings on this subject have had additional security, so we do not find it a very convincing reason for not telling us.   Margaret Hodge: I do hope, Chairman, you were also given information as to what—. I was told that   you were given information prior to the announcement today as to what we would announce so that you would know what was in there, and that was our attempt to be both courteous and inform you for today's proceedings.   Q351 Chairman: Yes, we were. Is the Government objective to remove private cases from the Family Courts money driven or outcome driven?   Margaret Hodge: Outcome driven, absolutely and totally without hesitation outcome driven. This is, as you know from many years of looking at these issues (much longer than we have been doing), a highly contentious area. It is very difficult. We know that for the child's best interests we need to do all we can to ensure that parents decide between themselves on the best arrangements for their children and maintain a meaningful relationship with their children, where it is safe for them to do so. We know that there has been a growing number of divorce and separation, we know there are a growing number of parents, both mothers and fathers, who are unhappy with the outcomes of the decisions that they themselves take, or the courts take on their behalf, and we know that there are a growing number of children who suffer from the consequences of separation, divorce and the acrimony that is caused if the arrangements are not properly established; so it is for the child's interest and it is outcome driven. It is utterly completely focusing the work we are doing.   Q352 Chairman: That being the case, you recognise, do you, that some of the alternatives cost money and that resources will be required for that?   Margaret Hodge: Indeed, and you might quite rightly say that we wish we were to have more resources than we currently have. I am quite pleased with the additional resources that we have been able to secure to take forward a lot of the proposals that are contained in today's announcement. It is never enough. I would love to be able to say to you there will be even more money, for example, going into training and funding, more counsellors for more mediation, but it has been a growth area. We will continue to look at how we can expand it in an effective way to secure the outcomes, and I hope that the Committee will welcome, in the same way as we have done, the additional resources that we have secured both around introducing the Adoption and Children Acts, issues around harm and domestic violence, which are going into the court, the money that we could put into CAFCASS, the extra money that we are announcing today for contact centres, which is another element in it, and using money better, so changing the way in which CAFCASS works so that we can better promote mediation, conciliation. All those, I think, are putting resources in the right direction as well as adding new ones. It does not mean we should not have more, and I will argue that case all the time.   Q353 Chairman: We will come on to CAFCASS a bit later this morning, but why have you ruled out a statutory presumption that children should have contact with both parents?   Margaret Hodge: We start from the principle, which is enshrined in the 1989 Children Act, that the welfare of children should be paramount; and you can only have one paramount principle, as you will know, and I know that the Committee has discussed this and, reading the evidence, obviously this has been an issue that has been raised. It does seem to us very clear that for the vast majority of children, providing it is safe, contact with both parents on an on-going loving, sustained way is critical to their development. One only has to look at issues surrounding the development of children in terms of even just educational outcome to see the impact it can have when children do not have that, but, because it is in their best interests, we would want to see it happen on that basis, and we think that is the right way of approaching it.   Q354 Chairman: You did not address in today's presentation, as I understand it, an alternative suggestion, which is that section 1(3) of the Children Act, which has a welfare check-list in it, could include a requirement that the courts should have regard to the importance of a relationship between the children and the non-resident parent. Why did you not consider that point?   Margaret Hodge: I think we have to be really careful in this debate that we do not promise parents something which we are then not delivering. The reality, as you know, is that all the case law that has been built up over many years recognises that the best interests of the child are served by a continuing relationship with both parents where it is safe for them to do so. It is pointless, in a sense, to change the law, pretending you are changing something when in reality you are not. I think that gives false promises and false hope to people who are really distressed right across the piece on the circumstances that face them when they separate and divorce and cannot find an arrangement, or cannot agree an arrangement between themselves. I strongly feel this, Chairman, in this whole very tense debate raising false hopes is the wrong route down which to go, and we do not need to change the law because it is absolutely clear they are in the case law.   Q355 Chairman: Experienced practitioners, like those represented by the solicitors from the Law Association, recommended the addition to the welfare check-list as opposed to the changing presumption, and judges we asked about it did not seem concerned about doing that so long as the drafting was carefully considered. It seems strange to me that a suggestion that has reasonably wide backing amongst those who have to practise within the courts should not have received more serious consideration.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Obviously I have only read the evidence; I was not at the Committee. I did not interpret what was being said as wide backing. I think you are right, of course, Chairman, that the SLFA did raise this, but, as Margaret was just saying, I think it is quite important that we address the problem that people have identified to be the problem; and the problem is not that the courts look at this and say anything other than that it is in the child's best interests, nor, indeed, that we would all wish to see on-going relationships for children with both parents, the problem that was identified is how does one make sure that actually happens? Simply looking to adding into a check-list something that is already well understood, is in law, is certainly viewed by the courts as being of critical importance, is not affected by a change of that nature. What matters is how you make sure that down the line what is being sought for these children actually happens. The way that we have approached it is to say that the principle is right, the law is clear; what do we now do to ensure that the reality for families and, most importantly, for children is that they get what is in their best interests?   Margaret Hodge: Can I add something to that? I too have read the evidence that you had before this Committee, but the vast majority of those who responded to the Green Paper that we published in the summer did not favour a change in the legislation. I just put that to you. Even the SFLA, who I know have argued for that, see it as symbolic rather than—   Q356 Chairman: That is exactly the point I was going to put to you. The Government quite often makes changes in the law because they think a signal needs to be given, even though they do not think it will have an immediate practical effect.   Margaret Hodge: Let me come back on two things. First of all, I think the important signal that we all need to consistently give is that the interests of the child must be paramount. That is the absolutely crucial signal, and I do not want to muddy that signal at all. However, because we know it is in the child's best interests to maintain a meaningful relationship with both parents, again where it is safe for them to do so, we need to demonstrate to parents that that means that they need to comply with contact orders; and the signal at the other end, which is the sticks that we are talking about this morning and which will be considered in draft legislation shortly, the stronger set of levers that we are proposing to give to judges, that is the way of signalling that it matters that contact is maintained. I think muddying the waters at the earlier end does not help, and I genuinely believe would raise false hopes.   Q357 Peter Bottomley: One of the things that children benefit from the most is consistent continuing care and control from parents. One of the things which, I think, has been absent, both from the evidence to government, from government and to this Committee is the fact that at least a quarter, if not significantly more, of children whose parents get involved in court proceedings, or their children get involved in court proceedings, get into persistent trouble with the law, and this is particularly relevant at the moment because of something happening in my constituency, Worthing, where old people's homes are turning into children farms, children's homes, without the caring authority even notifying local social services or police that troubled and troublesome children are coming. We will be having a separate meeting with Lord Filkin about this. What is there in all the processes and procedures that in some way, first of all, alerts parents to their children's needs for this care and control so they have worthwhile activity rather than being involved in worthless activities where they create other victims and become victims themselves, and how does the integration of government start setting some kind of aim, if not targets, in reducing the dramatic increase in the trouble that children get into when they have troubled family backgrounds?   Margaret Hodge: I am not sure this is the appropriate forum in relation to the programme, but I am happy to talk about the issue of looked after children and those particularly placed outside their area where I think you are quite right to raise the issues that I know are particularly pertinent in your constituency at present. I am happy to deal with that, but I am not sure it is totally relevant to the debate. Parenting Plans. There is a lot we are doing today, there is a real menu of propositions that we are putting forward, but the Parenting Plans and the  developments we have made there which demonstrate in a much more practical way the decisions parents can take around arrangements for their children which really put the child's interests first, are part of the practical things that we are doing in our armoury to get parents to focus on the interests of the child and give them the stability, continuity and consistency that, I agree with you, is utterly central to the good outcomes later in their lives. What are we doing? There they are. I hope Committee members, if they have not received them, will receive them. I will make sure that you receive copies of those today. What are we doing to try and counter some of the poor outcomes that children from separated families can have if we do not manage to get the contact arrangements sorted out? That is part of my much wider programme of reform for children's services, and I would simply say two principles underpin that reform. One is to try and spot the signs of things going wrong much earlier, so as to intervene earlier to strengthen the preventative services, whilst always realising that the protection service is important, but getting a shift focused to prevention. The second principle which underpins the reform programme is trying to reconfigure the way people respond to children's needs by building the services round the needs of the child, with the child's voice being central. Instead of having a child, for example, who may show in a school the first signs of distress by truanting or bullying or whatever it is, just having that happening in isolation, people working in the school will be working much more closely with the family doctor or with the health visitor or with other relevant professionals so that they really do work round the needs of children. There are lots of ways in which we are doing it, but those are the two principles underpinning our reform agenda.   Q358 Peter Bottomley: Can I observe that that is a proper response for what the professions might do, but if I try to talk about more confident, more competent parents, good enough parents at a time of fractured or fracturing relationships, is there anything in the Parenting Plans which mentions children getting involved in crime and is there anything in what parents can be alerted to about the extra practical things they do to fill their children's lives with worthwhile activities rather than just being cut adrift?   Margaret Hodge: There is a lot in there about the practical things that parents should do. Do we talk about crime? I think the answer is, "No".   Q359 Peter Bottomley: Yet one male child in four by the age of 18 or 20 has been convicted of a serious criminal offence?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Can I add two things on that? The first is that within the proposals, the curriculum and PSHEs the whole question of family breakdown is going to be more fully developed in terms of teaching materials so that young people understand (a) that it may happen and (b) the consequences of it for themselves and for their own children potentially of which the impact on the children would be a critical part. Secondly, looking at some of the mediation proposals that we have and the family resolution proposals too, part of that is the opportunity to talk about the impact on children of parents not reaching agreement and not finding ways through to the benefit of their children, of which precisely the point you make about a child who feels in an impossible situation, who may find themselves suffering educationally, socially and otherwise (which, as know, can be the slippery slope, as such), would be part and parcel of it. We do cover it, not in a heavily profiled way, but in terms of those two different aspects. All of this is part of Every Child Matters. All of this is about the integration across government to develop policies for children that mean that they get the best start, the best future.   Margaret Hodge: One final point. These are consultation documents, so no doubt the Committee also will wish to express its view, and I hear what the Honourable members say.  Q360 Chairman: What do you say to the charge that these proposals announced today are unambitious and do not carry us any further forward, indeed represent a step back, in some respects, from the proposals that were produced in 2001, the Making Contact Work proposals to which the Department responded in 2002?   Margaret Hodge: I am disappointed by that assertion.   Q361 Chairman: It is a question lots of people are asking.   Margaret Hodge: Are we going to make people happy out of this? Are we going to find an answer to every individual problem that individual families face? I think the honest answer to you has to be "No", we will not be able to do that: because the best way of resolving these issues is for adults to change the way in which they behave when they try and determine the future for their children. What we are attempting to do, and I think the package is pretty comprehensive, Chairman, if I may say so, is to put this whole emphasis on supporting parents to mediate, conciliate, find their own solution without recourse to the adversarial litigation that takes place in the court room. There are a lot of carrots, in a sense, in that side of the agenda to bring people together, and at the other side of the agenda what we are then doing is introducing a set of sticks. I think it is an ambitious package; I think it is a comprehensive package. Will it work in 100% of cases? No. That is because there is a limit to what we in the government, the courts, the mediators, anybody, can do to actually reconcile conflicting adult individuals.   Chairman: You will have to come back to us at that point because it really comes up here to compulsory mediation, which is the notable absence from the proposals announced today. Mr Dawson.   Q362 Mr Dawson: We had some excellent evidence last week from the National Family Mediation Service which was very encouraging about the benefits and potential of mediation, and it is good that the Government are committed to it, but certainly what we have got from a very experienced practitioner there was that it was a view that, where it was safe (and mediation would not be used where it was not safe anyway) there was nothing wrong with the degree of compulsion placed upon people to undertake mediation. Why have the Government not chosen to go down that particular route?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We did consider that. We talked to a lot of people involved in mediation. Our conclusions at the moment are that there is a sort of almost contradiction in terms, if I can put it like that, between compulsion and mediation that we felt it was really important for the courts to give a very strong steer that couples should consider mediation, that they should be looking to do that, but we have not got as far as saying that they should be compelled. It would take primary legislation to do that. We are not convinced from those we have spoken to and, I agree, there have been some interesting very well considered views taking different views, if I might say that, around this, but our view at the moment is that we think it better to have a very strong steer, and the role of the courts in that is absolutely critical, but not to say, "You are compelled to sit in a room to try to find a solution to this", because the situations that arise with some of these cases, as you will know, Mr Dawson, are very intractable. People find it very difficult. It just might not be possible in all cases, and it might not be the right solution in all cases. Therefore we did not want to make it compulsory. That does not mean, in any way, that we do not think it is a really critical and important path to go down for a huge number of people, but, we felt, compulsion suggests that it is a solution, but it cannot always be.   Margaret Hodge: There is an expectation, or there will be—there is in some instances and there will be increasingly—right through the system that the first port of call is mediation, where it is safe to do so. Looking at the evidence that you did get last week, the argument appears to be whether there should be compulsion about whether mediation should be considered, not whether there is compulsion about whether mediation should be entered into. I think, again, we are on the margins here, because certainly in the Family Resolutions Pilot, in the work that Elizabeth Butler-Sloss (the President of the Family Court Division) has done, there is an expectation right through the system that the first port of call will be a consideration of mediation, and I think that is an important distinction.   Q363 Mr Dawson: Do we not have a significant anomaly at the moment? You are quite right to point out that the requirement would be to at least explore the option of mediation, but that is something which is imposed on publicly funded court users at the moment in order to guarantee the continuation of that public funding. Obviously the same pressure does not apply to people who are funding themselves, and the evidence that we have heard is that that can undermine the whole process where you have one party with significantly less pressure on them than the other?   Margaret Hodge: The judgment is difficult on this one. It is whether you think it is appropriate to force people into sitting in a room staring at each other and refusing to talk each other.   Q364 Chairman: You do think it is appropriate if public funding is involved?   Margaret Hodge: What we are saying is that where public money is strongly involved, it would be sensible to try and go down that route. It is a judgment. It is whether it should be an expectation or compulsion, and you can play that either way. I think what you will find with the reforms that we have introduced today is that the expectation is now so strong that consideration of whether mediation will work in a particular set of circumstances will occur in, I would have thought, most cases, with the exception of domestic violence cases where it is not safe for that to take place.   Q365 Mr Dawson: I am encouraged by the statement and by Next Steps that you are also looking at other ways of involving children in mediation. Are you able to say anything more at this stage about how you are proposing to do that?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We are looking at the whole question of how do you make sure the child's voice is heard across the court system? For many children the voice can be heard through the parents, even though they happen to be in court, and I would not wish to take that away. For quite a lot of children that will be not appropriate, and the role of the CAFCASS officer—and Margaret may want to talk more about that—will be critical in listening to the child's views. I know there is some discussion about where to position that within the process, whether the child should be listened to first before meeting the parents, and that is in a sense an operational question to look at what works best as we roll out some of these initiatives, and, of course, finally, there is the question of whether a child needs to be legally represented at the other end of the spectrum, but that will be there, quite rightly, because having a solicitor to represent you does not necessarily equate to learning effectively what the child wishes to have. Central to this must be the child's position in the process and making sure through the courts that we know the child's wishes and feelings, but—and it is a huge "but"—not asking the child to decide or make choices, for all the reasons that you would expect.   Q366 Mr Dawson: Moving on, if I may. We have touched on funding already, but I am certainly not one of those who thinks that no changes have been made. I think that what has been proposed would be a transformation and a huge cultural shift in the way that the courts and society deal with the problems around relationship break up; but in developing Parenting Plans, in court conciliation, Family Resolutions Pilot Project and in developing mediation, in developing the other S in CAFCASS much more effectively than it has been, there is a massive results implication in this, is there not? Can you say more about the ways in which these particular things are going to be funded, and are there, in fact, any savings that could develop from changing the emphasis so much away from the current system?   Margaret Hodge: We have over time put more money into mediation, and I have said we will continue to seek to add to the resources there. When I first got responsibility for contact centres there was not a budget line. We now have a solid budget line, and we have announced today we are increasing that in 06-07, 07-08, to £7,000,000, if my figure is right, £7,500,000, extra, which no doubt you will want to talk about in greater detail. I think we have now put the building blocks in place which ought to ensure that CAFCASS provides the sort of service that the Committee aspires for it and that we aspire for it and actually the families and children aspire for it, and included in that I think the budget—again my figures may be wrong, and I will correct them to the Committee if I have got them wrong—when we inherited it, was about £95,000,000. We are talking now about an 05-06 budget of £107,000,000. So that is a pretty considerable increase, some of which we have secured at a time when public funding has been rather less generous than before. We have also secured the money to ensure that the issues around domestic violence with the new definition of "harm" and the forms and the training have been properly funded. I feel pretty good about the extra money that we have been able to put into the system. I also think if we can get CAFCASS right, particularly in relation to these issues around private law, and if we really can get everybody involved, the judges demanding fewer reports and CAFCASS officers not writing these lengthy documents, which are not only costly to write but costly to consider, there should be some resource redistribution towards the conciliation and the mediation that we seek. Just to correct my figures: £107,000,000 is 04-05, not 05-06.   Q367 Peter Bottomley: The Family Resolutions Pilots Project, which we understand to have been running for some time, why was it not possible to have an early interventions project alongside to see which worked better?   Margaret Hodge: I know there has been a lot of discourse on this issue, and probably, if I reflect on it, the mistake we made was renaming it. We did it for very good reasons, and I think it reflects better what we are doing, but I think the renaming has caused greater hassle and misunderstanding than the benefits we gained from having a new name. This is an attempt to ensure that before matters get locked into court there is an early intervention.   Q368 Peter Bottomley: I am sure we will find some way of incorporating the very useful parliamentary answer I got, which can maybe save us a bit of time now. The only question I was asking was would it not have been possible to have had the Early Interventions Project Pilot running alongside the Family Resolutions Pilot Project?   Margaret Hodge: We are back on the issue of compulsion around mediation, and our current legislative framework does not allow us to have compulsory mediation. We could not, therefore, have had the same structure which existed in the Florida experiment. We could not have done that. What we have done is adjust, learn from the Florida and other experiments in this to fit in with our appropriate legislative framework. We have already had that debate. We could change the legislation and then we might try and do the experiment, but at the moment, under the current legislative framework, we have framed an appropriate pilot for our UK circumstances.   Q369 Peter Bottomley: I think the Committee need to understand, in the absence of compulsion you cannot make it compulsory. I am not sure the Committee yet understands why it was not possible to have a project that brought in early intervention: because one of the reasons for changing the name was the fact that Family Resolution Pilot Projects are not as early as the Early Resolution Intervention Projects were intended to be?   Margaret Hodge: I would be interested in hearing from you, what earlier point before the first point when somebody tells the court they want to engage in litigation are you referring to? What earlier point?   Q370 Peter Bottomley: Again, I do not want to go through your parliamentary answer, which was useful?   Margaret Hodge: I do not understand it; I genuinely do not.   Q371 Peter Bottomley: I hope you do understand it, because I thought I understood it when you made it.   Margaret Hodge: But I do not understand the earlier point. The moment people appear in court the expectation is that they will engage in the process of the Family Resolutions Pilot. At what point could we have sought an earlier intervention?   Peter Bottomley: I recognise that the roles have been reversed?   Chairman: Is this customary? It is for us to ask you the questions!   Q372 Peter Bottomley: The earliest is when parents start believing they are not going to reach agreement without the use of a court, and from that point the time they actually appear in court provides a gap which would allow early intervention?   Margaret Hodge: I am sorry to interrupt, because this is quite an important point, because I know there has been a lot of criticism. If parents decide they cannot take a decision without going to the court. What do they then do?   Q373 Peter Bottomley: They then get professional advice, normally, and they then find themselves in a queue to go to court and then weeks follow. Once they get to court, the present—   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: That brings in two of the proposals. One is the role of the professional advice, which is from a solicitor. Two things on that: one is the accreditation, so that we are clear about what the role will be, and also what we call family help, which is enabling solicitors to provide a longer session with parents in a sort of mini-conciliatory role to see whether there is room for manoeuvre, which I think is quite important when you look at that; also for the parents to think about the other opportunities that they will have to get the kind of information and advice as well. So, when they arrive at that point, what we are doing is ensuring that we have provided for them to get the support. The other one is collaborative law, which is where they have an option to each have a solicitor, a model that seems to be working quite well in Canada particularly, also in the US, but Canada is the model I would look to, where they each get a solicitor and the four of them, in a sense, within a court setting, quite often, but not in a court room if I can make the difference, agree to try and reach a decision. If they completely fail, then those solicitors go out of the picture and it goes through the normal court process. Those are examples where we have tried to develop new models that will fit different circumstances, because the difficulty for this group of people who arrive in court is that they are very varied in their relationships with each other and with the children in question. I am sure, if you have talked to some of our judges, they will describe how different and difficult it can be. Those are some other models that, alongside the pilot, we hope will provide different opportunities, depending on the needs of the parents in those circumstances.   Margaret Hodge: Can I, finally, make it absolutely clear to Mr Bottomley that the moment an application is lodged with the court the applicants are referred to the Family Resolutions Pilot. They do not wait for that first court appearance. The moment the application is lodged, before that application lodged, the court will not know about the family.   Q374 Chairman: The difference might be, of course, if the solicitor was saying to the family, the two parents, "There is no point in my making an application to the court unless you first go into this project and you embark on a Parenting Plan straightaway as part of this process"?   Margaret Hodge: I hope that will roll from the fact that the moment they do make the application they will be referred. That follows, in a sense, does it not?   Chairman: Before I call upon Mr Vaz and Mr Cranston, I am going to ask anyone to declare any interests they might have.   Keith Vaz: I am a non-practising barrister and my wife holds a part-time judicial appointment.   Ross Cranston: I am a barrister and Recorder.   Q375 Keith Vaz: In its written evidence the Equal Parenting Council has complained that "the children minister, Margaret Hodge, has looked my colleague and me straight in the eye and told us that if a custodial parent is determined enough to exclude other parent, there is nothing a court can do about it. With that sort of leadership on this issue the Government is beaten before it starts." Do you remember that conversation?   Margaret Hodge: Those precise words I do not, but, in a sense, I have said not a dissimilar thing this morning at the Committee, that at the end of the day the authority and power of the courts, the Government and any other agency will not of itself resolve very, very conflicting relationships, and to pretend that we can I think is wrong. It is an interesting area, because we are often, Chairman, accused of being the Nanny State on many issues, and this is an area where I am saying actually recognise the limits of the state to resolve issues within the family, and that was really the point I was making. If it was interpreted in that way, I apologise, because clearly the propositions that we are putting forward today are trying to strengthen the armoury of both judges and ourselves, but we may not be able to resolve all of these things.   Q376 Keith Vaz: There is no need to apologise if the statement is true and that is what you believe, but do you accept that the court system is currently failing fathers?   Margaret Hodge: I think the court system is failing families, and, importantly, the court system is failing children. Probably I would say that as children's minister.   Q377 Keith Vaz: Do you think that there is perceived to be a bias against fathers?   Margaret Hodge: I am absolutely clear that there is not a bias; there is not a gender bias at all. The reality, as we all know, is that in most families the mother takes prime responsibility for the care of the children, and if one needs to decide with whom the child will live, you will tend to place the child with the person who has prime care and responsibility. That is changing a bit, and I welcome that, and I welcome the increasing role of fathers in the family, but, equally, do not let's look at this through rose-tinted spectacles. That is the reality of the situation. Where I do think there is a problem in the court process—and I think we all agree on this in government—is that because it often takes so long to get to court, to get the final decision, you are then in a situation where the status quo becomes the best interests of the child, and, if there is a sort of bias in the system, it is the length of the proceedings which then lead to a situation which could of itself be interpreted as a bias.   Q378 Keith Vaz: Baroness Ashton?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: If you look at the evidence that I know the Committee has already received, I think the President (Dame Butler-Sloss) talked about an average of about 40 weeks in private law, but I know you have also had evidence talking around 58 weeks.   Q379 Keith Vaz: That is the delay. I am I am talking specifically about a particular group: fathers feeling that the system is letting them down because of what they perceive to be a bias in favour of mothers?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Indeed. I was adding on to the point—  Q380 Keith Vaz: I take the point about delay?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: —about how the perceptions of bias would be there. I am clear, and I know the judiciary in all their evidence to you have been clear, that it is not about any kind of bias in the proceedings that go before the court; and if one looks at the numbers of orders that are given for contact, and so on, I think that is very clear. The question is two-fold. I think, the underlying issue, because particularly for fathers who feel, quite rightly, totally aggrieved and distraught on occasions about what happens, we need to look beyond what they perceive to what the practical realities are of the problem that they are faced with in not seeing the children who they clearly love and wish to see and should see. The answer to that comes in the whole series of ways in which we try to address it, and it is about delay, it is about enforcement; it is also, if I might say, about the real cultural shift which we need to make, which is recognising that fathers play, and should play, an incredibly important role in the upbringing of their children and that needs to be recognised in a societal way. If it has been determined to be in the best interests the child to see dad, it is completely unacceptable for another parent, unless there are issues of harm, to refuse that. It is about the message getting out from the courts, but also from all of us that this is a really important statement, and the implications for children will be entirely negative if that is not done.   Q381 Keith Vaz: I asked the President of the Family Division if she had met the various groups, some of them more moderate than others, and her response was that she would not; she would obviously meet people she felt appropriate. But, as politicians, there is nothing to stop be you meeting the likes of Sir Bob Geldof and other groups to discuss these issues. Presumably you have had meetings with Fathers4Justice, the Equal Parenting Council, Sir Bob and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all, because it informs you better about the subject that you are involved in. Is that right?   Margaret Hodge: I have had meetings with Sir Bob Geldof himself, in fact a lengthy two hour attempt to see a coming together of views, and I have met the other main fathers' groups. I have not met Fathers4Justice, and I think I would not do so.   Q382 Chairman: Except in rather unfriendly circumstances.   Margaret Hodge: They attempted to meet me!   Q383 Keith Vaz: In the ministerial foreword today obviously we have three cabinet ministers who will tell us that they have 10 children between them, so they must have some practical knowledge of dealing with children it says, "The Government firmly believes that both parents should continue to have a meaningful relationship with their children after separation as long as it is safe and in the child's best interests." This is not happening at the moment, is it?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: It happens in a great number of cases. I do not think we should lose sight of how many cases are resolved out of court (90%) and how many cases within court are resolved and work. Nor should we lose sight of the fact that a lot of parents who do have prime responsibility for children would love their children to have more contact with a non-resident parent. I think it is important to put it in context. Having said all that, which I know the Committee accepts, there are cases where it does not work and where we have a parent, quite often but not always the father, who feels quite understandably aggrieved, and the work that we have done with the fathers' organisations, who have been very important in the work that we have now produced, has been to try and address what I describe as the underlying practical issues that will make the difference for them and enable them to see the children they love.   Margaret Hodge: The ONS study, which no doubt your Committee is well familiar with, showed I think this really interesting finding, that there are twice as many resident parents who felt that there was not enough contact with the non-resident parent than there were non-resident parents who felt there was not enough contact with the child. I know the statistics are far from perfect in this area, but that is an interesting perception. Again, if you think about that in practical terms, CSA issues and all that sort of stuff, there are too many fathers who disappear from their children's lives, not because the mothers try to stop them—the mothers want a continuing relationship—but because they chose for some reason or other to do so. There are lots of features and aspects to this issue, part of which you are addressing in your inquiry.   Q384 Keith Vaz: But, going back to my original question, if the resident parent digs her heels in—because it would be more likely to be a woman than man on these issues on the statistics that we have—there is nothing we can do about it. Even though the foreword says, "In time it needs to be socially unacceptable for one parent to impede a child's relationship", it is one thing saying it should be socially unacceptable, which means a cultural change, and another thing about government action to try and do something to prevent this happening?   Margaret Hodge: The draft legislation, which we are deliberately putting through pre-legislative scrutiny so that people have an opportunity to consider it  properly, is largely about the additional enforcement powers that we wish to give the courts to ensure that there is greater contact between children and the non-resident parent.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: And at speed.   Q385 Chairman: Would you like briefly to describe those for us: the new powers that you are intending to introduce in the new Bill?   Margaret Hodge: What will be in the Bill?   Q386 Chairman: On this particular point: enforcement?   Margaret Hodge: I think I am in some difficulty. I am never quite sure about the protocols about this issue.   Chairman: You gave an indication, certainly ministers on the radio this morning gave an indication, that there would be powers of enforcement, and I think we are therefore entitled to know what they are.   Q387 Ross Cranston: It is at paragraph 98 of the document.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: As you will know, it is quite difficult when you look at enforcement to ensure that in doing enforcement you do not, in a sense, act against a child's interests, so we have considered issues to do with whether you had a custodial sentence or whether you fined a parent. In the end those are questionable in terms of whether they are acts for the child, so the areas we are examining are the question of community service, looking at whether we can make parents go into parenting classes to understand the implications of what they are doing, and to look at areas such as curfew, because one of the things that is raised is that there will be a dispute between—. Let us put mum and dad in the stereo typical view. Dad turns up for a visit. Mum does not answer the doorbell. Dad goes back to court. Mum says he never came. He says, "I came, but you were not in", and so it goes on, so trying to enforce the person being in the house available for when the child goes on the visit. Those are examples of the areas that we want to look at in pre-legislative scrutiny.   Q388 Chairman: You have not quite decided yet whether you want to take these powers?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We are going to take powers. The issue in terms of the pre-legislative scrutiny is are these the most appropriate enforcement opportunities to give the courts a range of possibilities, again, so they can look case by case and try and enforce it? I do not want in any way to suggest that the cultural change is not what I think ultimately has to happen, but I would not want Mr Vaz, in particular, to feel that we are not also backing that up by saying it is unacceptable. The other question is the speed with which it comes back to the court: because one of the issues around delay is that if months and months go by and dad does not see the child, the status quo in a sense is that the child has not seen him, and if the child is quite young it is a long time in the child's life.   Q389 Keith Vaz: Yes, but, as the Chairman as said, it is not just about contact: because you can get these orders, but if they are not enforced— I have had many examples of fathers in particular who have come to my surgery to complain exactly describing the situation that you have described. We also had the President giving evidence to us telling us that she felt it was wrong for people to clock-watch, but I have some fathers who come and plead with me and they say, "She did not open the door for 10 minutes, so I have lost 10 minutes." Those 10 minutes, if it is one visit every fortnight, are absolutely crucial, and unless parents believe the courts are going to act to enforce, since there are no other measures that we can adopt to increase contact if there is not an order, then there is going to be no confidence in the system?   Margaret Hodge: Cathy has mentioned a range of the community service based orders. There are others. I can give you another instance. There is something about a big heavy fine on a poor mother which seems inappropriate, does not appear to serve the interest of the child. However, for example, fining a mother for the cost of the travel. If the father travelled and was not able to see his child, fining for the cost of a holiday that did not happen. Those sorts of things are the community-based orders we are looking at. Can I make another point? This is a CAFCASS point. If a court makes an order, at the moment nobody does anything, and, if the order does not work, one of the parties has to come back to the court. What we would like to see CAFCASS doing over time, and it is clearly part of this refocusing and reconfiguring of their work, is part of their job ought to be that the order is implemented; so you ring up.   Q390 Keith Vaz: But some of them are very proactive; they actually check whether the access has taken place. They ring up on a Monday morning?   Margaret Hodge: Quite. The earlier you intervene the better you can do it, the more you can conciliate, the more you can mediate.   Q391 Peter Bottomley: Early intervention is a good idea?   Margaret Hodge: Early intervention is a good idea. I have to say to Mr Bottomley—that might have been said in facetious way—we have always said early intervention is a good idea.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Can I add one other thing to Mr Bottomley on that? One of the other issues I am sure you have had from parents in your surgery as a constituency MP is where children simply refuse to come on an access visit because they have been told that dad is impossible, and this that and the other. One of the things we are going to look at—I do not have any solutions to this, but I did not want you to think that we have not got this under consideration—is what advice and support we can give to children in that context so that they do get impartial support to deal with those issues and not feel, again, that they are having to make the kinds of choices that are inappropriate for them to have to make. That is an important issue as well.   Chairman: I think Mr Soley wants to come in.   Q392 Mr Soley: One question and part observation. First of all apologies for missing the earlier part; I had an appointment. This issue of the perception of fathers, which actually is very important because the perception is real even if there is not actually legalistic discrimination, how much have you considered this: that it is partly the role of the man in our society where it is almost an expectation, though it is not totally, obviously, that they get to be the ones who leave the home? The representation of the issue of the resident parent being in a stronger position anyway, that is compounded by it. I also ask you this: are we not under-estimating the feelings of the child on this, because the child will often be angry or dismayed as a result of the parent who leaves the home and may also find that more difficult to cope with in terms of the parent coming back to see them. Is it not right that the three factors that come together here that we have to give more attention to is obviously the issue of delay and clearly also the issue of enforcement, because that allows manipulation by the resident parent, but the other factor is the CAFCASS work plan paying more attention to this very difficult area of the frustration of the child about the person who has left the home?   Margaret Hodge: I agree with everything that you have said. I think one of the reasons that this is an issue that we are all thinking about at present is the changing nature of the family—and I do not under-estimate that at all—in two regards: first of all, that more children are going to experience separation and divorce of their parents—it is a third now of children who will go through that, so it is impacting on a large number of children—and, secondly, there is a change in the role of fathers. In my lifetime, from when my kids were little to now seeing my grandchildren, you see a fantastic difference. When I used to go to the primary school there were not any men there. You now go to a primary school and there are a growing number of men picking up their kids. Even as I go round Sure Start centres, which I spent a lot of time doing, and they did not exist 20 years ago, but you would not have seen dads there and now you see a growing number of dads with their very little babies who have care of the babies. That means that the demands of society and the legislators and all the agencies working with children and families has to alter to have regard to that, and I have no doubt—it is one of the interesting things—we will to return this again over time as the nature of the family changes. If I look at it now, I think a sort of legislative framework putting the interests of the   child first, an emphasis on mediation and conciliation and getting it outside the courts and then a tougher armoury around the enforcement area is the appropriate response in society as we know it today, but all the social workers I talk to, all the CAFCASS workers, all the lawyers, the judges, all the solicitors are all beginning to think through the changing nature of the family. If you had gone to a solicitor 20/25 years ago, they would have said, "Mum will get the child", and actually that is no longer necessarily true, which is why these allegations that the courts are gender bias are false. I think over time that will evolve and it may require a different legislative settlement in five, 10 years' time.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Can I add to that. One of the issues, though, again talking about children, is continuity for the child. What happens in so many families in the tragedy of family break down is that parents will try and think about keeping the child with its familiar lifestyle—its home, its school, its friends, and so on—and that, almost by definition, has an implication about where the child will stay, not necessarily with whom, but where, and I think we need to make sure that we do not lose sight of that as being a critical factor in how children develop. It is certainly a factor, we know, in what happens to looked-after children when they not only lose their family, which may be for very good reasons, but they then get moved away from the things that they need, which are their family and their friends, which I think goes back to the point Mr Bottomley was making about children's homes as well, where children get moved away and lose all of that and have to start afresh, which is incredibly difficult if not impossible in some circumstances.   Q393 Mr Soley: But that also compounds the problem for the parent who has moved away, because all the other things in the child's life stay constant—school, friends and so on—the one thing that is not constant is the parent who has gone, man or woman, and that creates a problem for the child in understanding why that is and why they cannot come back. We all know the tear-jerking statements you get in situations like that. I do not think we draw any grand conclusions about that. I think it is important to put it in the perspective of understanding why the non-resident parent is in a much more vulnerable position than the resident parent in terms of dealing with that stress.   Margaret Hodge: Yes, and the worst thing for the child is that the child does not want to get engaged in conflict. It is bad enough having the separation. If the child is in some way then asked to take sides or is used as a football in some way in that relationship, the distress that they are feeling, the difficulty of relating to the parent who has left the home, is exacerbated.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: But there are some wonderful examples where parents make it work as well, and there are some fantastic examples where children love having what often turn out to be two bedrooms, two homes, two stereos, two this, and it can work. I do not think we should under-estimate that children, given love and care, will make it work for themselves as well as long as parents can act in a proper and reasonable manner. There are lots of children all over the country for whom this works because parents do it well.   Mr Soley: I agree with that.   Q394 Ross Cranston: I would like to ask a series of questions about courts. I, for one, certainly welcome your commitment in the paper to back improved case management. You mention at paragraph 76 target times, and I was wondering how they are going to be developed and what they might look like. Is that going to be you or the Court Service or the judges?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am sure you have seen the President's work this morning as well.   Q395 Ross Cranston: Yes.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: What the President is outlining—because it will be for her to work on it, it will be for the judiciary in this context—is that we will have first hearings within four to six week is her ambition, and this deals with the issue, as has been already noted by the Committee, of delay in getting that initial hearing in place, and she goes on to talk about other aspects of the Court Service in terms of continuity of the judiciary, and so on. So that is the ambition for that.   Q396 Ross Cranston: So it is her statement?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Yes, it is.   Q397 Ross Cranston: Which you are supporting?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Yes.   Q398 Ross Cranston: You also mentioned, and you foreshadowed this earlier, the improvements in terms of enforcement, and, again, I for one would welcome that, and you have mentioned draft legislation. When is that going to be available?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: That is for the Department for Education and Skills.   Margaret Hodge: Very soon.   Q399 Ross Cranston: Good. We might hold you to that one.   Margaret Hodge: Yes, do. Q400 Ross Cranston: May I just ask you two very specific questions and it may be that you cannot answer. Just comparing the Next Steps document published this morning with Making Contact Work in 2001, it seems to me that there were at least two points which seemed to be dropped. First of all, there was the power to allow courts to refer parents to a psychologist or psychiatrist, which was going to be publicly funded at first instance, and the other one was to allow courts to have the power to refer a non-resident parent to a specific education or perpetrator programme. Has it been a conscious decision to abandon these and, if so, why?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: What Lord Justice Wall was talking about in that particular context was the opportunity to look at whether one could have a professional assessment. You cannot make somebody go to a psychiatrist or a psychologist because that is not the way they work, nor can you have compulsory discussions with a doctor, it does not work like that. I think they would find that unacceptable in terms of clinical practice.   Q401 Ross Cranston: So the problem is not the public funding side?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: No, it is not. It is that one would not be able to refer somebody in that manner without breaching all of the ways in which we deal with medical good practice.   Q402 Ross Cranston: What about the education programme, the second aspect?   Margaret Hodge: It is the point at which there will be a power to refer either party to particular programmes as part of the enforcement powers.   Q403 Ross Cranston: The Making Contact Work document suggested that might come earlier. Could you write to us about that one?   Margaret Hodge: Yes. I am just trying to think through the compulsion point. It comes back to the compulsory mediation point and whether at some point you could say to someone you have got to go to mediation, you have got to go a parenting class or you have to go to an anger management class or whatever. I think that would be difficult.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: One of the pieces of work that we are doing, which is being led by Baroness Scotland, in terms of the whole question of domestic violence and perpetrators is to examine where best referrals and perpetrator programmes might take effect, because critically beyond this discussion there is an issue about ensuring that those who perpetrate domestic violence do not continue to do so and there are real issues about their relationship with their children as well. I will write to you in that context to set that out because I think that overlays this in a sense and it is being looked at by a group of ministers.   Q404 Chairman: On page 25 of the paper there is a passage which bears the signs of a bit of redrafting. Maybe I am being too forensic, but it looks as though someone decided at the last minute that it needed to be changed. It raises the question about how you are going to deal with the judiciary. It says, "We will work with the senior judiciary to find out the best way to strongly to encourage parties to attend mediation." It looks to me as though somebody changed that sentence at some point. What does that mean? Is it that you are going to work with the senior judiciary who are not going to be given a power of compulsion in circumstances like mediation or the situation we have just described but they are going to tell you of some other way in which you can make parties go to mediation?   Margaret Hodge: I think this is part of things like the Family Resolutions Pilots where there is an expectation there. The way that that has been designed is that there is an expectation that people will participate in mediation and conciliation processes. We want to see how that works. We want to learn from that and the evaluation of that scheme as to whether or not there are other ways that we can use, through directions or expectations or whatever, to strengthen the trend towards mediation and conciliation.   Q405 Chairman: Are you sure it was not just a vague aspiration, someone saying, "We'd better tighten this up a bit"?   Margaret Hodge: No, it is not. All the collaborative law changes, the in-court conciliation, the changes within CAFCASS, are quite dramatic changes. We need to evaluate them consistently and then, if necessary, make further changes to improve the process more.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We have had conversations with the judiciary and they are clear that, again bearing in mind that each case is different, there are critical fault lines in the process where the judge is able to strongly recommend things to the parties that might be successful. What that is suggesting is that we need to think through, in the light of what the President is doing in terms of the way she is looking at private law cases and the proposals that she has put out this morning, how we build on that and inject in to that some kind of mediation services that might be available. So it is not just a woolly aspiration. I apologise for the grammar.   Margaret Hodge: We could look again, if experience tells us to, at the court rules and see whether or not we need to amend those in any way. I hope the Committee will continue to keep a vigilant eye on this area and see how some of these proposals work in practice.   Q406 Ross Cranston: I think paragraph 51 is in your defence. I want to take you on to this issue of resources. Our special advisers dug out the figures for between 1979 and 2004 in terms of "judge power". The Queen's Bench Division went up from 47 to 74 judges, Chancery went up from 11 to 17, but the Family Division only went up from 16 to 18, which was a much lesser increase. You might want to comment on that. In particular, can you comment on whether you think there is the "judge power" available, first of all, to implement general case management and, secondly, the President's framework? Is there an intention to increase "judge power"? I should say by way of preface that, having worked on the issues of case management over the years, I do not believe that "judge power" is necessarily a solution, but the Family Division increase is certainly much less than in other divisions of the High Court.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: And certainly the President in her evidence to you was suggesting that there was a need to increase "judge power". There is a review going on at the moment involving the senior judiciary looking at whether we have the right number of judiciary at present but also looking at future trends as well, because it is quite important to be ready for that and that will come to some conclusions in the not too distant future and recommendations to the Lord Chancellor will take into account these issues. So that is under review. The second thing I would say is that when one looks at the unified courts structure that we are examining, as well as some of the proposals to shift from the crisis management in the sense that that is the court process to trying to get resolution earlier, the ambition is that the resources will be used differently as well as the additional resources coming into play. What we are trying to do by virtue of the review and also the implementation programme for this is to see whether we have enough judges in the right place and whether we have also got the right level of support being shifted, if that is the right decision, to look at what happens before people end up in the courtroom.   Q407 Ross Cranston: Have you got any idea when this might report?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: It is in the next few weeks or the next couple of months the review is due to finish. I am not sure whether it will report formally. It is for the Lord Chancellor to determine, having looked at this whole thing holistically, whether the resource is in the right place so that we address those issues, but certainly the President has made that point and we listen very carefully to what she says.   Q408 Ross Cranston: We would like to know as soon as any decisions are made about that because obviously if you do not have the resources to provide case management and to implement the framework then you are not going to achieve anything.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: If one looks at the framework that the President has put out, quite a number of those things are about the best of good practice, they are not necessarily about new resources.   Q409 Ross Cranston: That is why I made the point that "judge power" is not necessarily the answer.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: But because the President feels very strongly about these issues they are taken very seriously by the Department.   Q410 Mr Dawson: Is the quality of our judges good enough? The President said in evidence to us that if judges ignore issues of abuse and domestic violence she would consider removing their ticket from them. There have been some disastrous decisions in the contact cases made by judges, have there not?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am not aware of a disastrous case that has come to my attention.   Q411 Mr Dawson: 29 children have died on contact visits, some of them ordered by judges against the advice of CAFCASS for instance.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: If one looks at the 29 cases that have been put forward, the vast majority of those have never been near a court. There are real issues when one looks underneath those figures to try and establish where the courts have played a role and what role that is. We all know from the press reports we hear about these awful tragedies that sometimes there is no indication the parent is going to behave in that manner and murder the children, they are issues often around severe distress or mental health or other issues. So it is not necessarily the case that there is any history or any suggestion of violence in advance. Where the case has gone to court, the President would always look very carefully at it and it would be for her to look at what the implications would be in those circumstances. They are all terrible cases. I simply make the point that not all of them have been anywhere near a courtroom where the courts could have intervened if they had been able to.   Q412 Mr Dawson: But any death is completely unacceptable.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I accept that.   Margaret Hodge: Mr Dawson knows better than anyone that these professional judgments around what is the appropriate decision to take in the interests of the child are incredibly difficult to make and sadly they are not always right, but they are not always right in the courts, they are not always right by social services, they are not always right by paediatricians and medical practitioners as well. Although we have got some very really, really tragic instances and we have all read that report, I do not think we should immediately leap from that to questioning the quality of the judiciary where they are being asked to make incredibly complex judgments just as social workers, doctors and others have to do.   Q413 Mr Dawson: I think everyone's judgment is open to question. Can we be assured that the new President of the Family Division will keep the actions in these very difficult cases very firmly under scrutiny?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I am sure the new President will do a fantastic job. He is a judge with an amazing record in terms of the work that he has done and I am delighted that he has been appointed. I think the critical factor in this as well comes back to making sure that the court, when it is making a decision, has as much evidence as it possibly can have. We all know that there is a link between violence to children and domestic violence. I hope the new forms that we are producing will play some part in that by being able to work with parents to ensure that if there are issues around domestic violence, those are recognised and recognised quickly.   Ross Cranston: I would just associate myself with your answers to Mr Dawson's questions and say that Lord Justice Potter is an outstanding judge and humane person.   Chairman: This is not a confirmation hearing!   Q414 Ross Cranston: Hilton and I also disagree about the next issue that I want to ask you about, which is the confidentiality or secrecy surrounding the courts. The President said that she thought that the courts ought to be more open. Yes, you would have to protect the names of children, you might have to protect certain of the evidence that is given, but in as much as there was to be more openness, that would have to be a change agreed to by the Lord Chancellor in terms of some of the rules. First of all, can you comment on the general principle about openness? We have had background notes about the situation in other countries. Secondly, could you say whether or not the Department is prepared to agree to a change in the rules?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: You will know, Mr Cranston, from the 1992 or 1993 report on this through to the work that Sarah Harman has done in her reports on Canada, which I know have come forward to the Committee as well, that there is a huge amount of interest in this and the President herself has commented on this. The position of the Department is that we are very firmly of the view that the anonymity of children must be protected. I think one of the persons giving evidence to you talked about their clients, on arriving at court, saying, "This is going to be in private, isn't it?" and that is because there is a fear that people have. The issues around if one had a public presence what kind of public one would get, campaigning groups able to stand in the gallery and shout, that kind of thing, these are incredibly difficult circumstances where people are often in huge distress. What the President and the judiciary are looking for is to be able to be more open about their judgments and I think there is a general view that this could be a positive move and provide greater understanding of the way that the family courts work. So the proposal that she is looking towards is that there might be able to be a presence but that the normal reporting restrictions around children would apply, but there would be a more general understanding of the way the courts work. What we have said is that we want to look at this very carefully so that we address the issues that are coming from both directions, those of anonymity, those of making sure that we do not put those who are in court into a more difficult situation where they feel unable to give the evidence and that we do not just make this such an open situation that in a sense that risks justice being done. Justice must be done and justice must be seen to be done. The position of the Department is that we are in conversation and dialogue about this and I think the Lord Chancellor earlier this week said that he was interested to explore what we might do but within the very strict ground rules about the protection of children.   Q415 Ross Cranston: So you are going to take the lead from what the judges say, are you? Is that your approach?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: It is not that we will take our lead from the judges. The judiciary have raised an important question, others have raised it too and we want to look very carefully to see how best we address that whilst recognising that what the judiciary are saying is that this is not about removing anonymity, this is not about creating a situation where people feel intimidated by who is in the gallery or anything like that, but about a greater understanding of how the family courts work.   Q416 Ross Cranston: Quite apart from that, the utilitarian argument, to make people understand the system better, there is the principle that we run our courts on a basis of open justice.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Indeed. There are differences, as you will know very well, between what happens in the magistrates' courts and what happens in the county courts and as we move to a unified courts system we will need to review this in any event because the two systems are different.   Q417 Ross Cranston: Is there going to be a consultation paper about this or how are you going to take this forward?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: As we move towards a unified courts system we will need to review the procedures in any event because we have different procedures. In doing that we will be taking account of all that has been said and trying to move towards our proposals on that. It will be for the Lord Chancellor to decide if he wants to do a formal consultation on that, but certainly we will consult and listen very carefully to the views that are being brought forward.   Q418 Chairman: Does that mean that you are going to discourage the judiciary from taking their own action where they think it appropriate, as they have done in a number of cases and giving judgments in open court, for example?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Not at all. That is for them to decide and it must be for them to decide. What I am merely describing is that as we move towards the new unified system, if one looks across and says what makes most sense, the judiciary will take their own decisions in their own courts as appropriate, as indeed they do. As they said in evidence to you, there were some circumstances, as in the case of the two babies, where, because there was a lot of press coverage, it was appropriate to keep that in the public view. That must be for them to decide.   Q419 Peter Bottomley: Among the helpful submissions was the Department for Constitutional Affairs one on 1 November 2004 where on pages 20 and 21 there are references to "changing the law to make sure that families could consult their Members of Parliament without breaking court restrictions." I do not see any reference in the Green Paper today to that. Could we know at some stage what the proposals are and whether actual changes to the law are necessary?   Margaret Hodge: I think we have issued a consultation paper on that. I will make sure that you get a copy of that.  Q420 Chairman: We have it. We were anxious to know whether there is going to be progress because people come to their MPs wanting to reveal that they have been badly treated in court, but the evidence for that we ought not to see and we are not allowed to bring to you, as the Solicitor General discovered to her cost.   Margaret Hodge: It is not just an issue for MPs, it is an issue for Citizens Advice workers, trade unions, etc. It could be a whole range of people that you go to for further advice after you have been through the courts. We have put the consultation paper out. Once we have got a response to that we will make the necessary changes. We want to work very speedily on that.   Q421 Peter Bottomley: Can we just make clear that at the moment there is no inhibition on someone talking to a Member of Parliament, it is actually disclosing information that is linked to the court?   Margaret Hodge: I do not know the answer to that. Do you want me to write to you on that?   Q422 Chairman: I think it might be wiser for you to write to us. My suspicion is that the party giving information might be at risk of contempt of court.   Margaret Hodge: Just in terms of timeframe, we want to have the changes in place by the summer of this year, but we do need to have a proper consultation on it.   Q423 Keith Vaz: What operational benefits have been obtained by the transfer of CAFCASS from the Lord Chancellor's Department to the Department for Education?   Margaret Hodge: I think the Committee did an extremely thorough bit of work, which I took very seriously when I first got this job, on the way in which that transfer had not been handled very well. I think we all recognise that in its initial stages the creation of CAFCASS was not a success for children or families. I hope the Committee agrees that the concept is an appropriate concept and we want to make the concept work. I hope that the steps we have taken and will continue to take to get an effective service that properly meets the needs of children and their parents are right. I think I have now put the proper building blocks in place. What I have always said is you cannot turn round the performance of an organisation overnight. The new chief executive started in September. He is undertaking pretty radical management changes and restructuring throughout his organisation.   Q424 Keith Vaz: How often would you meet with the chairman and chief executive of CAFCASS?   Margaret Hodge: When I had direct responsibility for this I would meet the chairman pretty often and the chief executive at least quarterly. Geoff Filkin undertakes some of those regular meetings on my behalf. We are about to go and meet and talk to the new board in the not too distant future now they have settled in.   Q425 Keith Vaz: What is morale like in CAFCASS?   Margaret Hodge: Much, much better.   Q426 Keith Vaz: Obviously they saw the report the Committee had published and you have taken over. Are they leaving the service? Are they joining the service? What are the numbers?   Margaret Hodge: The numbers are up. The figures I have are slightly out-of-date as these figures always are, but there has been an increase in numbers. Most importantly, there has been an increase in full-time staff, which is where we want to get it. The other thing is the self-employed practitioners where there were particular problems. There has been an   increase in the number of self-employed practitioners who are now working with CAFCASS. I know you had evidence from both the chair and the chief executive. They are completely committed to trying to ensure that they get high quality, properly trained staff with the proper competencies in place as soon as possible, but, having said that, there are still regional difficulties.   Q427 Keith Vaz: Which is the worst region?   Margaret Hodge: It is probably London.   Q428 Keith Vaz: Is it a recruitment problem?   Margaret Hodge: Yes. We are all fishing in the same pool, the social services department and some of the new organisations that we have established. So the answer has to be partly about increasing the number of people who enter social work.   Q429 Keith Vaz: Earlier in your evidence you talked about funding and you gave us some figures for 2004-05. Is there going to be an increase next year?   Margaret Hodge: There will an inflationary increase. It was £12 million extra we gave them, which is a pretty substantial increase in their budget. I want to see that working properly. You have to give that time to work. The answer is not just money.   Q430 Keith Vaz: One of the problems is that if you do not have enough CAFCASS officials then the reports do not come out and that adds to the delay in the system. Is there any knock-on effect of the problems in CAFCASS, which obviously are being addressed but there are still problems, to the courts system?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We rely on having a good complement of CAFCASS staff. I am very, very hopeful that the changes that Margaret has put in place and the new board and new chief executive will make a great difference. One of the critical changes which is being looked at is the way in which CAFCASS operates and the move away from the lengthier report, which may on some occasions be appropriate, to focusing on the issues that need to be addressed and it is also about using the CAFCASS resource more appropriately. So linked in to the changes that we have got today and, of course, linked with the courts is making sure that we use these very valuable, highly trained specialists as appropriately as possible. If we get that right then we will be able to use that resource better, which of itself will make a huge difference to them and to their morale.   Q431 Keith Vaz: I think both of you coming to give evidence to us today is great. There is a ministerial committee meeting, is there not? As ministers you meet to discuss these issues, do you?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We do.   Q432 Keith Vaz: How often?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Geoff Filkin and I meet regularly. We have a steering group which deals specifically with the public law issues, because we have a target around the 40 week expectation which includes all the different organisations and it includes CAFCASS. Geoff and I are considering whether we ought to incorporate into that some of the issues around private law without moving off the track. Geoff and I meet regularly, probably fortnightly to monthly depending on diary commitments, to go through all the issues. This morning before I came to the Committee we were talking about setting up a group to consider how we take forward all of the proposals in the Green Paper.   Q433 Keith Vaz: Obviously ministers will meet. Where does the liaison kick in at official level?   Margaret Hodge: We have a sponsoring group of officials in the DfES who have responsibility for CAFCASS and they have very close links in with officials working in the DCA. When we first looked at the CAFCASS problems I think we were particularly concerned with the public law issues because these are the most vulnerable children in our society and the delays incurred there in simply not even allocating cases were horrendous. I often laugh when we say we have the 40 week protocol because 40 weeks is a heck of a long time in a child's life and that must not be the end of our ambitions. On the public law cases, in a year, from November 2003 to November 2004, the number of unallocated cases almost halved. There are still some unallocated cases and there should not be. We still need to make further progress. We are beginning to see those shoots and changes.   Q434 Keith Vaz: Are you satisfied that they look at their report from the children's perspective? I do not want to start this daddy stuff again, but fathers will say to me that they write the reports biased in favour of mothers and mothers say the same thing about fathers. Where is the vision in this? Where is the ethos to ensure that it is the child's interest that is paramount?   Margaret Hodge: The vision is that the child's interest ought to be paramount and children's voices should be a much stronger focus of all the work in this arena. Does CAFCASS do it now? The best do and the training will ensure that the best becomes the practicable.   Q435 Chairman: You have told us of the progress CAFCASS is making and we are very interested in that progress and pleased to see some of it has taken place, but there are very serious criticisms that we had to make about it. You are about to give CAFCASS a greatly enhanced responsibility that is within its terms of reference, but it is a new area of work given that at the moment they are unable to meet their targets which themselves are somewhat unambitious.   Margaret Hodge: I agree. I had concerns about that. As they were settling down in a reconfigured organisation I had to be absolutely clear that they focus on priorities and do not spread themselves too thinly. I accept that there is a danger in what you say. I discussed that very, very openly with both the chair and the chief executive of CAFCASS and told them not to consent unless they felt able to take it on and I am sure they said so in their evidence to you. They are taking it on cognisant of the fact that we want priority to be given to sorting out the organisation and, in particular, getting the support to children in the public care system turned around as quickly and as effectively as we can. I agree there is a danger there. I think the political imperative was such that we had to try and run with the two things together and we have to watch it very carefully.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I agree with everything Margaret says. When we were looking at the courts side of it it was CAFCASS themselves who were saying they spend too much of their time writing lengthy reports that they perhaps do not need to do in all circumstances and that they could offer a better service if they could have a more focused approach to this and devote more of their time to working with children and their families. In building this part of the work round the Green Paper we were very much fitting in with where CAFCASS felt professionally they would use their resources best and I think it is a greater clarity of direction for the CAFCASS staff which is very much welcomed by those I have met.   Q436 Chairman: Some of the ministerial comments or possibly just briefings that the press have given gave the impression this morning that CAFCASS is going to write many fewer reports. When you look at the White Paper, it is much more cautious language than that about "more focused reports". Are you in a position to say CAFCASS will be able, as of a few weeks' time, to drastically reduce the number of reports it writes and the length of them?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: If one looks at what the President has said this morning in terms of how the courts should operate, she describes the purpose of the first hearing and how that CAFCASS should be doing to be much more about focusing on the areas that need to be addressed rather than the broader, lengthier report that covers all the issues. If one puts that together with what we have been saying about the role of CAFCASS, I think you find the two come together. What we were not prepared to do was say to the judiciary they did not need CAFCASS reports because that is clearly untrue. The judiciary feel very strongly in some circumstances they might need lengthier reports. It is not about getting in the way of that relationship but being clear about the nub of it, which is getting to the issues that need to be addressed in those reports.   Margaret Hodge: You are right, as the Minister responsible for CAFCASS I do not want to promise more than we can deliver and I have said as much very, very clearly both to the chair and the chief executive of CAFCASS. I think a bit of this is "Watch this space". We know the direction of travel we want to go in, we know where we want to get to, but we must not try to rush at something and then simply fail to deliver in the way that CAFCASS has done in the past. So you are completely correct to draw our attention to it.   Q437 Mr Dawson: We have seen the amendment to the existing definition of "significant harm" and the introduction of the Gateway process. Can you assure me that accusations of domestic violence, which is a thing we would all acknowledge is significantly under-reported and I think these reforms are designed to address that, will not be ignored when people do not initially make complaints at the Gateway stage?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: I certainly would want to reassure you about that. What we are trying to do is to develop a systematic way in which we approach this, a process that from the beginning enables those who might be victims of domestic violence to bring that forward. We know from experience that those who suffer domestic violence sometimes do not know that they are even victims of domestic violence, it is how they live. There is an enormous reluctance on the part of the victims, for all sorts of reasons which I am sure the Committee is fully aware of and certainly I know Mr Dawson is, to come forward and use that and it is to do with being a victim and all that that brings with it and feeling it is your fault and guilt and so on. We want to make absolutely sure that where it could be a factor it is enabled to be raised at the beginning and throughout the process and that where it is raised the court makes a finding of fact looking at the evidence that might be available to the court to determine whether or not it is a factor and then, where it is a factor, it should be clear about the definition of harm and what the implications would be of that in terms of contact with the child.   Q438 Mr Dawson: Will there be a stage before any enforcement is applied where the possibility of domestic violence and/or child abuse is very closely looked into?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: Indeed. It would be failing the children if those allegations were not looked into. What we want to do is to make sure, wherever possible, those issues are addressed before we got to the point of a contact order being made rather than having the order made and then the parent who has residency rights saying they are not allowing that child to go because the person is violent, which in a sense would have to be looked into. We want to try and get those issues addressed early in the process. I think that is a critical point.   Q439 Mr Dawson: There are people who e-mail me almost on a daily business to tell me that accusations of domestic violence are frequently false. Is there any truth in that?   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: We do not have any statistics about unfounded allegations because as they are unfounded they are not pursued. Where they are made then the courts have a responsibility to make a finding of fact and to get the evidence as to whether to support that claim or not. Occasionally it is one word against another and the court has to use, as Margaret was saying earlier, its best judgment in those circumstances, but where you have children, it is also an opportunity for the CAFCASS officer or others involved with the child to determine whether those allegations are correct as well. That is the process. We think that is the right process. It works well. It enables us to rule out the unfounded allegations by looking for fact, but it also makes sure that the bigger problem of victims not coming forward is enabled to happen more often.   Q440 Mr Dawson: Would it be helpful for the Government to study perhaps when the Gateway process gets underway not only the number of complaints of domestic violence but also how many of those complaints are found to be proved? That seems to be an important piece of research.   Baroness Ashton of Upholland: One of the interesting aspects whenever a Select Committee does a piece of work is that one finds out what one does not know and certainly I would say to the Committee that one of the helpful things that has happened is that we need to think very carefully about the kind of statistics we collect and the sort of information we need without burdening, as you will appreciate, CAFCASS, the courts or others and it might well that be the Gateway process in a sense enables us to do that. We need, if nothing else, to see whether it works.   Chairman: Thank you both for the full and frank evidence you have given us this morning. These are important issues in the lives of many children and families. We will report on them shortly. Since you have quite a good track record of taking notice of our serious recommendations, as in the case of CAFCASS, we trust that you will do so on this occasion.

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