Legal Aid reform delayed by antiquated IT system
The MOJ has finally published its response to the legal aid means test review and agreed to expand civil and criminal legal aid to include 6 million more people.
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Free Download from Family Justice Young Peoples Board
Following recent discussions with CAFCASS, FNF have been asked to include a plug for the FJYPB book In Our Shoes. It is the stories of young people as they journey through the Family Court System. Some stories are difficult to hear some are well known to us all, but they are all worth a read. FNF are always keen to promote the experiences of children when faced with the ordeal of Family Courts and separation in the hope we can alleviate some of the trauma.
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Huge thanks to Vincent McGovern.
Central London Branch claims to be one of our best. No-one currently knows how long it has been operating. Probably 35 years. It meets every week. There is no record of one ever being missed. Zoom during lockdown but live meetings recently resumed. Before the pandemic there were about 1,000 attenders a year. Numbers are building up again, there were 12 on the 5th of June. Upstairs room of the Three Kings public house, 7, Clerkenwell Close, near Farringdon tube. Every Monday 20.00-22.00.
For the last 11 years Vincent has been branch chair and the principal meeting host. With his work as McKenzie friend (he does not do it anymore) there must be possibly several hundreds of children re-united with a parent as result. His guidance and support to LIPs was priceless and stellar, as it was his career in child protection.
He also led lobbying work. The branch, with him and John Baker as main organisers, run workshops on Parental Alienation, False Allegations, how to cope personally with exclusion, the failings of the family courts and prospect on contact denial as Child Abuse.
His book ‘The War on Dads and Children: How to fight and win’ (from Amazon) is must-read. His interview with Ann Widdecombe, her site, ‘Heresies’, episode 7, from 19 to 36 minutes had got 56,000 views of a year ago.
He leaves a strong branch and an infinite sentiment of gratitude and admiration from the CLB committee and the thousands of people he has helped in his 15 years of involvement with FNF.
Our warm thanks and best wishes for him personally and for his carrying on in a different capacity. As he will.
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Child Support Collection (Domestic Abuse) Bill will gain Royal Assent. LINK
This government backed bill, now approved by parliament, will allow the Child Maintenance Service (CMS) to force parents where domestic abuse has been found to have occurred, onto the Collect and Pay system.
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The Government is proposing to modestly raise the income levels below which court fees in civil actions are reduced or not payable at all. Useful and welcome within their limits. A lot of the proposals are detailed and technical to do with the calculations of income and capital.
The main thrust of our comments, which we hope will get the attention of at least the Junior Minister, Mike Freer MP, are to do with the context of which this is a detail. He mentioned, in his foreword to the paper the need for Justice to be accessible. So, we have picked up on that. Particularly drawing attention to how family law, which is about the futures of children, differs from other ’private’ ‘civil’ disputes between citizens. There needs to be ‘joined-up thinking’ across the board to improve things for the children affected by separation and divorce.
This is a taster for the more important consultation, about promoting mediation as an alternative to litigation. We will welcome non-adversarial proceedings. However, we are sceptical about whether the proposals -of Dominic Raab who is no longer in charge – will make the difference that he (and ourselves) would like to see.
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This has been a hectic year so far, but we are looking forward, as we approach our 50th Year, to being in a much better place.
We may have been a victim of the closures of some bank accounts for - maybe - having unacceptable views. We simply do not know. We have complied with every request from our then Bank, HSBC. They still closed our account without explanation. Worryingly we were described in the press as a ‘Fathers’ Rights’ charity. It’s a sign of hostility when that happens. Friends and neutrals describe us a shared parenting or sex/gender equality charity. We describe ourselves one for children’s rights to both parents. The situation has been dealt with and no funds have been lost, but it has been tiresome and time consuming.
We have had two recent useful meetings to help prevent the problems most of us have at source.
A renewed and positive relationship with CAFCASS, the social work agency which prepares reports and recommendations to the family courts. We have been invited to their review of the ‘Child Impact Assessment Framework. ‘ They are making progress how they deal with domestic abuse in family proceedings, but there is still resistance to seeing contact denial as one aspect of it.
The second meeting was with Nichole Jacobs, the domestic abuse commissioner and her team. This was in a useful alliance with Mankind, Dads Unlimited and the Paul Lavelle Foundation. Our stance was that the family courts sometimes inflicted as well as colluded with abuse being inflicted on partners and children. The Commissioner appeared to accept that this could happen. We look forward to their report. More next month after its launch, to which we have been invited.
Of course we look forward to Sam joining us and helping us go forward.
You are welcome to give your views at paul.ocallaghan.trustee@fnf.org.uk
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