Divorce
mediation scheme flops
Clare Dyer, legal editor
The
Guardian - Monday 27th June 2005
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1515464,00.html
Only
23 couples take part in pilot plan to help separated parents resolve
child contact disputes
Plans
to introduce a child-friendly way of dealing with battles between separated
parents have been derailed after a pilot procedure was completed by
just 23 couples in nine months.
The figure is far below the 1,000 that ministers expected would use
the system. Three family courts in London, Brighton and Sunderland were
chosen to try out a one-year project due to end in September, which
could have become the norm in England and Wales for resolving child
contact disputes after parents split up.
The
project is based on programmes in the US and Scandinavia which have
reduced the harmful effects of family breakups on children.
But
in a parliamentary answer, the children's minister, Maria Eagle, has
revealed the extent to which the project, which has cost nearly £200,000
so far, has fallen short of expectations.
Only
47 couples had begun the procedure, of whom 23 had completed the programme
of classes followed by mediation - which the government prefers to call
"parent planning" - to agree a parenting schedule.
The
classes give information about the children's need for frequent and
continuing contact with both parents and the adverse effects conflict
can have on their lives. Parents are taught how to manage post-divorce
battles and sit down with a mediator to apportion children's time between
them.
The
failure of the scheme is a disappointment to judges who backed it, and
will anger fathers' groups whose lobbying helped persuade the government
to set it up.
Critics
say the flaw is that the programme is not compulsory and parents are
simply opting to bypass it. Ministers say mediation cannot be made mandatory
without primary legislation.
The
government's children and adoption bill, which is due for second reading
in the House of Lords on Wednesday, contains no provision for compulsory
mediation. The Conservatives said they would try to amend the bill to
make mediation mandatory and to spell out in the statute, as in the
US and Norway, that children have the right to spend substantial time
with both parents after family break-up.
Theresa
May, shadow secretary of state for the family, said: "It is obvious
that this pilot project was simply a sham to get the government out
of a political hole. Ministers wanted to neutralise the protests from
fathers' groups, and this project was the plan they cooked up to do
it.
"However,
while the government have wasted hundreds of thousands of pounds on
a phoney project, children are being denied contact with parents who
love them.
"It
is time that the government admitted defeat, scrapped the pilot project
and addressed the real problem, that the family justice system needs
a complete and radical overhaul."
Experience
in the US, where many states passed laws providing for mandatory mediation
nearly 25 years ago, shows that it defuses parental battles and dramatically
reduces the number of court cases.
Among
those supporting compulsory mediation are district judge Nicholas Crichton,
who oversees the family resolutions pilot at Wells Street magistrates'
court in London, and Dr Hamish Cameron, a child psychiatrist who, with
Judge Crichton, helped devise the "early intervention" scheme,
which was scrapped in favour of the government's family resolutions
project.
Dr
Cameron, who has nearly 35 years' experience in court cases involving
children, said: "We're 10 to 15 years behind best practice in other
countries. We're still failing many children in this country."
The
national family law solicitors' group, Resolution, and a number of high
court family judges also support a mandatory scheme. Some senior judges
are unconvinced that the present law bars compulsory mediation.
A
spokesman for the Department for Education said: "In the absence
of legal powers to compel participation, we did not expect every eligible
couple to take part in the pilot."
