House of Commons - Public Accounts

Select Committee on Public Accounts Fifty-First Report

1 Potential benefits of mediation

1. Mediation is cheaper, quicker and, according to academic research, a less acrimonious means of solving family disputes than through the courts. Legal aid can cover the costs of an independent professionally trained and accredited mediator to help parties involved in family breakdown reach an agreed settlement. The National Audit Office found that, where mediation had been attempted, full or partial agreement was reached in 59% of cases. The Legal Services Commission agreed that the potential benefits of mediation should encourage more people to resolve disputes through this route, and that it was something the Commission needed to promote.[2]

2. The Legal Services Commission spends about £300 million a year on legal aid for family breakdown to people who are eligible on grounds of low income and disposable capital, and where the Commission is satisfied of the merits of their case. This might include initial advice; subsequent legal services including help resolving disputes by negotiation between solicitors, issuing proceedings or obtaining a consent order to give force to an agreement which has been reached (services described by the Commission as 'general family help'); and ultimately legal representation in court. There is a cap on the cost of initial advice that may be given, but no limit on the potential cost of subsequent representation in court.[3]

3. On average, the cost of legal aid in mediated cases was less than half that for cases when mediation was not used. The average cost of legal aid in non-mediated cases was estimated at £1,682 compared with £752 for mediated cases (Figure 1), representing an additional cost to the taxpayer of some £74 million a year. The National Audit Office estimated that if 14% more cases went to mediation around £10 million a year could be saved from the legal aid budget.

Figure 1: Legally aided mediation cases tended on average to cost less than those where mediation had not been tried

Average funding per person of cases in which mediation has been tried Average funding per person of cases in which mediation has not been tried Average "saving" of mediated case on non-mediated case

£ £ £

Cases involving children issues
(e.g. residence of children, contact with them) 726 1,746 1,021

Cases involving financial issues
(e.g. dividing a property between a separating couple) 711 1,510 799

Cases involving children and financial issues 785 1,743 958

All Cases 752 1,682 930

Source: National Audit Office analysis of Legal Services Commission data, (figures have been rounded).

4. Mediation can be quicker than other means of resolving disputes. The National Audit Office found that, on average, mediations took 110 days. Over 95% of mediations were complete within nine months and all were complete within twelve months. The average elapsed time between applying for other legal help with family breakdown cases and the date of the final bill was 435 days, and only 70% of these cases were complete within 18 months.[4]

5. The Commission believed it should be promoting mediation because it could help people avoid going to court and, on the basis of available research, mediation could be advantageous particularly if there were children involved. The Commission thought that mediation should remain voluntary and would not force people to mediate, but it nonetheless recognised that there were ways in which people's reluctance to participate could be overcome. Mediation could be organised in different ways, for example by using staggered mediation or organising different waiting areas, approaches which made mediation more favourably received by couples.[5]

6. In practice, most people were likely to walk into a solicitor's office in the first instance when experiencing breakdown in a relationship, and would not necessarily be familiar with the role of mediators or their qualifications. Many mediators were also solicitors and, for those who were not, part of their training was to understand the legal process around relationship breakdown. In all cases, in order to do legally-aided family work all mediators had to be specifically trained and registered to work under the UK College of Family Mediators or through one of the solicitors in the Law Society's family mediation panel.[6]



© Parliamentary copyright 2007	Prepared 16 October 2007