Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
BARONESS BUTLER-SLOSS,
GBE, LUCY THEIS,
QC, CAROLINE LITTLE,
JUDITH TIMMS,
OBE AND ELENA
FOWLER
16 JUNE 2009
Q1 Chairman: Welcome. Do you think this
debate has been conducted in the right terms, the debate about
how we can provide for legal aid in the family law area on a maintainable
basis? It tends to be very much in terms of the cost and quite
clearly governments have had to take account in recent years of
the rising costs. Is the debate being conducted in the right terms?
Baroness Butler-Sloss:
I have not been involved in that part of it. Lucy Theis, who is
chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, has been deeply involved
in the last two years. Of course I have retired and I have only
come along because I feel compelled to come because of what I
see as the very damaging effect on the access to justice and the
very damaging effect to children and to parents. I think the Legal
Services Commission, with the problem of the £2 billion bill
and the need to cut costs, has been going at it in a very broad,
blunt way without looking at what might be a better way of using
the relatively small amount of money, comparatively, that they
want to allow family lawyers to have. If they would listen to
the suggestions that are being made for a better use of the money,
one of the major points that seems to me to stand out a mile is
you should not be giving the same amount of money across the board
to the simple case and the difficult case. If you do that, you
do not look at the fact that a large proportion of care cases
are extremely difficult. They have very complicated medical evidence.
Social workers since Baby P have been of course putting a lot
more children through the care system and this may or may not
be the right thing for children, but it is a definitive moment
in a child's life and you will all know it means it will change
the child's life. Either the child remains with parents, which
may not be the right thing, or the child will be going into an
alternative home and lose their parents perhaps for the rest of
their lives. Those cases need more money than the simple case.
The LSC at the moment appear to be saying that you should have
a more or less similar figure, regardless of what the work is.
That will have an inevitable effect of voting with your feet by
lawyers, barristers and solicitors from this work. It is already
happening under the current figures and it will accelerate. I
spoke yesterday to the president of the Family Division and your
clerk may have told you that he was willing to give evidence if
you wanted, but not today. He is the chairman of the Family Justice
Council and you have their report. They are extremely concerned
as are the Family Division judges and judges generally as to the
impact of this. The impact means that they will not get the experienced
lawyers to do the work. The cases will take longer, will actually
cost more in judges taking longer, on legal aid, and be less well
done by inexperienced lawyers and will not have the effect of
the best that could be done for children. A very telling point
I took, I think from the Family Justice Council, was not only
is there a real danger of inadequate access to justice which may
create miscarriages of justice, but there is a double tragedy
for children whose families have failed them. They are caught
up in the justice system which is failing them further. Is this
what we are doing to our children?
Q2 Julie Morgan: You have already
mentioned the complexity of the cases that need the extra effort
and how important they are in children's lives. It is suggested
that that is one of the reasons for the growth in legal aid spending.
Could you describe to us what is the type of case? Why have cases
become so much more complex? Could you describe the sort of situation
that you are dealing with?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Lucy, as
chairman of the Family Law Bar Association, spends a great deal
of her time doing these difficult cases.
Lucy Theis: They have grown in
complexity for a number of different reasons. First of all, because
there has rightly been a very critical analysis, not only by those
who represent vulnerable families and children, but also by the
courts, in relation to the statutory threshold that has to be
passed, and the evidential basis for that, before there can be
decisions made that may lead to a child being permanently removed
from their home or not, or returned back home where they may be
at risk of suffering harm. As a result of that there is a very
careful investigation by the court and by those who represent
not only the children but also the parents and the other parties
to the case in relation to the evidential foundation for the allegations
that may be being made in relation to the risk of significant
harm. Secondly, the complexity in many cases that arise from the
medical evidence—for example, where there are non-accidental
head injuries; where there are issues in relation to sexual abuse.
Baroness Butler-Sloss chaired the Cleveland Inquiry and there
are still cases even 20 years on from the Cleveland Inquiry, where
there has been misdiagnosis in relation to allegations of sexual
abuse. There is a very recent decision by Mr Justice Holman that
deplores the practice that was undertaken in relation to the diagnosis
in that case. It is a number of factors that have led to the complexity
in relation to cases and demonstrates the increasing need for
expertise in relation to those who conduct these cases, not only
solicitors but also barristers. If you do not have that expertise—I
think it is a point your Chairman made in a recent article in
The House magazine—there is an adverse impact on
the hearings if that expert advice is not available—they
have been alluded to already by Baroness Butler-Sloss.
Q3 Julie Morgan: It is the most vulnerable
children that are going to be affected by these proposals?
Lucy Theis: Absolutely. It is
the children and families who are struggling, on the bottom rung
of the ladder, who are by and large the subject matter of these
hearings.
Caroline Little: The Association
of Lawyers for Children's purpose is to improve outcomes and represent
children through the legal process and enhance their representation.
We reflect membership throughout the country. Our solicitor members
are involved on a daily basis, seeing children in their placements
and representing children at every tier of court. Our barrister
members do the representation throughout the court. We work together.
One of the effects of the fixed fees that were imposed on solicitors
a year and a half ago in October 2007, which this Committee reported
on previously, was that there was no recognition of the expertise
of the Children Panel. The net effect of that is that, although
children's solicitors are still Children Panel members, parents'
representatives are not even solicitors any more. They are paralegals
and often people who have very, very little experience of the
matters dealt with in court. Children's solicitors are carrying
these cases and often carrying the cases for parents' representatives
because the outcomes for children are affected if parents' representation
is poor. The other aspect is of course that, with the influx of
cases recently, in a certain volume of cases children's solicitors
and barristers are representing children without the benefit of
a guardian for quite a large part of the case.
Q4 Chairman: I am getting a little
confused. You are almost giving the impression that all children's
cases are inherently complex, in which case it is not possible
to advance the argument that there is an increasing complexity
which is added to demand. Can you clarify that?
Caroline Little: They are not
all inherently complex. There are some cases where you are dealing
with the 11th child of parents with mental health or alcohol or
drug problems and the outcome is almost inevitable when proceedings
are brought. Those cases are dealt with very efficiently and work
through the court system very, very well. Complexities can arise
when other members of the family wish to come in and care for
those children. There is always something in the case that makes
it unusual.
Q5 Julie Morgan: If these cases are
not dealt with fully and properly at the court hearing, has any
assessment been made of the future cost to different services?
Caroline Little: No. It is a short
term measure. We have always said that we reflect the difficulties
that society has. We deal with the difficulties in society in
relation to children. We have always asked for government to look
at the knock on impact of not doing the work properly at care
proceedings level. It is a very difficult measure. There has been
no research in relation to that, although there is considerable
research in relation to the complexities that families that come
before the care courts have. There is independent research that
provides a lot of information on the multidimensional difficulties
that families have.
Elena Fowler: I am from the National
Youth Advocacy Service. We represent children in private and public
law proceedings and also offer advocacy and a range of support
services in a socio-legal model. In private law proceedings the
complexity issues are exactly the same but very often parents
are not represented at all and those costs then will fall to the
children's solicitor.
Q6 Chairman: I have sometimes had
the argument put to me that parents who have access to legal aid
in those proceedings are in a relatively stronger position than
those who perhaps by a marginal difference in income do not have
access to legal aid.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: That is
true. You will appreciate it is now four years ago but I had 35
years on the bench doing children's cases for most of that time.
In a great many private law cases where the parents either are
not represented or are not very well represented—90% of
children private law cases go through perfectly normally, but
there are 5% to 10% of hard core cases which turn out to be quite
a lot of cases over a year—the child needs to be represented,
either by a CAFCASS guardian or very often by NYAS, where CAFCASS
cannot cope and ask NYAS to do it. I have had those cases lasting
six or seven years. I had them still going when I left the High
Court, went to the Court of Appeal and handed them over to someone
else. These parents become locked into something. The only way
that one can cope with it is to try and get the child's position
separately dealt with. It is extremely difficult to get a guardian
for a child in a private law case and get it paid for.
Q7 Chairman: The LSC argues that
CAFCASS is funded to provide this assistance.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: They are
failing at the moment. There are 270 cases in London where they
cannot get a guardian.
Judith Timms: I am Judith Timms
from the National Association of Guardians. There are over 600
cases waiting nationally and this is the highest number that we
have had in the last few years. We have heard about the pressures
on the legal practitioners but what the Legal Services Commission
proposals are going to do is also remove independent social work
input from their funding scope in private law cases. That would
remove a whole raft of welfare evidence which the judges need
to have before them in order to determine the best interests of
the child. We have in this country to our credit a wonderful system
of tandem representation of the child, separate representation
by both a children's solicitor and a children's guardian. What
these proposals do is a double whammy because they attack both
wheels of this tandem. The tandem model is a very sophisticated
quality assurance mechanism for children. That is why it was set
up and that is why we in the Association of Guardians are concerned
about children, because guardians are the people who see the very
heavy end cases. We are talking about in excess of 60,000 children
a year. Guardians have an enormous amount of accumulated, front
line experience. We are dismayed at the prospect that the independent
social work input is going to be restricted under the proposals
because that will certainly limit children's access to justice.
Q8 Dr Whitehead: During the current,
recent consultation a number of concerns appear to have centred
around the reliability of the LSC's data and indeed the extent
to which you could say it has understood the legal services market.
What progress do you think has been made in terms of elucidating
that understanding during the consultation process?
Lucy Theis: Can I deal with both
aspects of that? Firstly is the data and secondly is the question
about understanding the market for family advocacy. In relation
to the data, one of the reasons why the consultation period was
extended from 18 March to 3 April was because of the concerns
in relation to data. Six months after the consultation was published
on 17 December, here we are now on 16 June and there are still
serious data issues. The FLBA, the Bar Council and other organisations
have engaged very constructively in relation to trying to resolve
the data issues. We have had weekly meetings with the various
statisticians; from the LSC, the Ministry of Justice, and from
the Bar Council, Professor Martin Chalkley. Professor Paul Fenn
has been brought in by the LSC from the University of Nottingham
and also there has been statistician representation from the Law
Society. The most recent meeting was this morning. It finished
at five to one. I have spoken to Professor Martin Chalkley, who
was present at that meeting today, and the fact is that they are
still unable to agree the basic data that underlies the proposals
that are being made. If I can just tell you what he told me, firstly,
that there is broad agreement that the LSC's existing model is
inadequate because it is based on assumptions about which there
is very little idea as to validity regarding in particular the
cost of solicitor advocacy. There is broad agreement between the
statisticians on the structure of the model upon which to evaluate
alternative proposals but, he says, the model is only as good
as the data upon which it is built. Essentially, there is still
a considerable amount of work to be done in relation to agreeing
the data upon which to build the structure on top. From the meeting
this morning, both Paul Fenn and Martin Chalkley are going away
to look again at the data and they are going to report back next
Friday. They have a further statisticians' meeting on Tuesday
30 June to discuss those issues further. The short answer to your
question is that there are still very serious data issues in relation
to the foundation of these proposals and here we are, six months
later, and they have not been resolved. In relation to the barrister
data regarding the family graduated fee scheme, many of the items
that have been identified by Professor Martin Chalkley have been
of great assistance to the LSC in the sense that we have helped
them improve their ability to be able to collect the data and
the systems by which they have been collecting the data. There
was a difficulty discovered this morning that may mean there has
been at least £3 million, 3% of the amount spent on barristers'
fees, double counted in the data that we thought was clean. This
is on the basis that, as we understand it, when a claim is made,
if it is sent back to the barrister for further inquiries, that
it is registered in the LSC data as having been a payment made.
When it comes back and is paid on the correct form, it is registered
as being paid again. Even at the most fundamental level—the
family graduated fee scheme was meant to be a gold standard, with
a relatively simple data system that was set up, yet there are
still difficulties in relation to that. In relation to the solicitor
advocacy, they have absolutely no idea as to what the current
cost of solicitor advocacy is. The implications for this are that
if they proceed on the basis of the flawed data in fact the impact
in relation to the budget is completely unknown, because they
may be right or they may not be.
Q9 Chairman: Lord Bach wrote to me
before he knew about the example you have just quoted and said,
"I understand that none of the issues identified has been
of sufficient statistical significance to materially impact on
the proposals."
Lucy Theis: I am afraid, with
all due respect, I would fundamentally disagree with that. The
most recent letter is set out in paragraph 11 of our briefing
document. The complaint has always been that the family graduated
fee scheme has been rising in cost. If you look at the last three
years, the cost has remained pretty consistent so it has achieved
what it set out to do, namely to provide cost control and to ensure
that the expertise due to the graduation within the fee structure
was retained to be able to conduct the work. Can I deal briefly
with the second point in relation to the advocacy market? As you
know, nine days before the close of the consultation the LSC instructed
Ernst and Young to be able to provide a report in relation to
family advocacy. We regard that late instruction as extraordinary
because we thought perhaps it may have been better to have got
that evidence first before making the proposals that they have.
We understand from the documents that we have seen that that report
is going to cost somewhere between £70,000 and £100,000,
so it is an expensive report that is being obtained. It is looking
at fundamentals in relation to the family advocacy market, including
the effect in relation to self-employed advocates continuing to
be able to do the work. That report, first having been told it
was going to be available in August, we are now told will be available
at the end of June, but there is going to be no opportunity given
to any of the stakeholders to be able to respond to that evidence.
We would say it is a critical piece of evidence in relation to
the impact of what they are proposing, particularly when the impact
falls on the most vulnerable in society. In terms of the process,
we say in effect that it makes a mockery of the consultation process
to produce such an important piece of evidence without the courtesy
of even a meeting after the report has been produced. They have
rather grudgingly said that they are going to share it with us
but in terms of providing an impact and the effect in relation
to what is proposed it is extremely important. We say the process
is manifestly unfair and fails to comply with what they said in
their own consultation paper about inviting stakeholders to provide
evidence to validate or challenge evidence that they had.
Q10 Dr Whitehead: I think I know
the answer to this in terms of what you have said about the Ernst
and Young research into the market. There has been no liaison
between the profession and the LSC as far as the Ernst and Young
report is concerned?
Lucy Theis: We have been continuing
to have meetings at practitioner and statistician level. In relation
to the LSC, they have been to see Dr Debora Price who you may
remember produced the King's College Survey that the FLBA produced
at the beginning of this year as a result of the survey in October.
That obviously only relates to barristers. It was not commissioned
to be able to deal with the advocacy market. We have been as helpful
as we can in relation to providing whatever data we have from
that. In relation to data concerning solicitor advocacy, the short
answer is that there is no data, despite the fact that you in
your own report in 2007 said that it was important that that data
should be collected. Frontier Economics, who were then the Department
of Constitutional Affairs' own expert advisors and reported in
2003, said that this data should be collected. We are aware, after
the instruction of Ernst and Young, that a survey was put out
to solicitors on the LSC website. We were told last week that
the response to that survey was eight. It has absolutely no statistical
basis at all. That is the bottom line.
Q11 Chairman: Not eight solicitor
advocates; just eight responses?
Lucy Theis: Eight responses. I
am unclear whether it is firms or individuals, but I do not think
it would make any difference, frankly. There were over 1,600 responses
to the King's College but it was commissioned for an entirely
different purpose. Debora Price has had two meetings I think with
Ernst and Young to provide what assistance she can.
Q12 Dr Whitehead: Lord Bach has said
to us that the Ernst and Young research is in his consideration
not relevant to the fundamental structure of the LSC's proposals
and that the sharing of the report with the profession was a courtesy.
You do not apparently agree with that.
Caroline Little: We do wonder
why the research has been undertaken if it has no value in the
context of the advocacy consultation that is taking place. What
is apparent from the solicitors' point of view is, when the initial
Carter consultation came out and fixed fees were being imposed,
the LSC and government have no idea of the extent and breadth
of solicitor advocacy at every level of court. They have no idea
and no information at all. Indeed, from a response that has been
sent to you yesterday or today to a review of the fixed fee regime,
you will see that solicitors have not been rewarded for preparation
for advocacy since October 2007 and that is a serious deficit
for solicitor advocates. It discourages solicitor advocacy.
Q13 Dr Whitehead: Could I turn briefly
to the question of overall spending? The Ministry of Justice has
now released revised figures for spending on the family graduated
fee scheme which show spending falling in 2007 and 2008 from the
previous year and the total spend at under £90 million rather
than the £100 million which was referred to in the original
consultation. That seems to me quite a difference. Has that in
your view made any difference to the LSC's approach as far as
consultation and post-consultation is concerned?
Lucy Theis: The short answer is
no. We have tried to persuade them that the family graduated fee
scheme is a scheme that works. It provides cost control and it
retains expertise. We have made suggestions about recalibrating
parts of it so that it can be extended to solicitor advocates.
In fact, when we first suggested it in 1999, we suggested it should
be an integrated advocacy scheme to cover all advocacy, whoever
does it. We have no difficulty with that as a principle. That
is something that we have said right from the beginning, but it
has to be a scheme that rewards the work that is actually undertaken
but does not over-reward the less complex work at the expense
of the more complex work. A matter of very great concern for us
is the fact that, even though this Committee has clearly expressed
some very real concerns about the impact and the effect of these
proposals, we were told last Friday that the LSC nevertheless
are going to make their announcement on 14 August, come what may.
They have made that decision in the knowledge of the concerns
being expressed not only by all the different stakeholders but
also by this Committee. If I may say so, it is treating this Committee
with contempt in relation to the way that it wants to steam on
with the proposals irrespective of the Committee's views and failing
to give those who should have it an opportunity to be able to
respond and make a contribution to evidence that is being produced
in defiance of fairness.
Q14 Chairman: Can I turn to the LSC's
view that it is really all about swings and roundabouts? In this,
as in other aspects of the law, what you lose on the swings you
gain on the roundabouts. Is that no longer in any way an appropriate
method in the area of legal practice?
Caroline Little: Solicitors have
been working under a fixed fee regime since October 2007. The
swings and roundabouts method is one that you will not find any
applause for among childcare practitioners. As I said earlier,
solicitor Children Panel's members are carrying a very heavy burden
at lesser pay than parents' representation. When the original
consultation came out, we said quite properly believing in a system
where parents should have quality representation as well as children
that parents' representation should be paid at a greater rate
because it is more difficult. They do not have professional clients.
Unfortunately, because there is no measure of who represents them
any more, the solicitors are carrying that burden at a lesser
payment. They are falling between the fixed fee and the escape,
which is double the fixed fee, quite regularly now. In relation
to advocacy, the swings and roundabouts model does not work at
all because, from a solicitor's point of view, if you want counsel
to do a complex case on behalf of a family member or a child,
you will not be able to get one if the fee is not correct for
such a complex case. It is as simple as that. It is not the same
as solicitors conducting the work to prepare the case. It is trying
to get an advocate to conduct it.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I am sure
this Committee knows that the Family Bar divides up into those
who do financial cases with private clients who make a good living
and those who do children cases who make very often a relatively
small living. They earn just about enough to pay chambers and
all the rest of it and have an income, but it is not a part of
the legal profession, either Bar or solicitors, who are in it
for making the money. It is also very stressful, very emotional,
very exhausting for judges and for lawyers. The return on it at
this moment is not particularly good, to the extent that I nowadays
when students come to me and say, "You are a family judge.
Should I go into family law?" advise them not to. They will
not get a good enough income and they will have a great deal of
aggro in doing it. If the new scheme comes in, of course one should
not be advising them to do it.
Lucy Theis: In relation to the
position regarding fixed fees, the fact is that the Bar tends
to do the more complex cases. If you have a system of fixed fees
with no graduation, the flight from the bar from doing this sort
of work will happen. It will become a stampede to the door. Debora
Price in her report then, when we were facing cuts of 13%, concluded
as a result of the survey that over 80% of those doing the work
were either going to reduce the amount they do or stop doing it.
I can give a living example of that in relation to a case I was
involved in last week, which was a private paying money case.
My opponent was a junior barrister of 20 years' standing, very
experienced, who up until last year was doing 100% of publicly
funded childcare work. He has now reduced that to 40% and he is
going to reduce it even further. Many colleagues of his of the
same experience and expertise are doing the same. It is already
happening. In relation to the impact of these proposals and the
flight from this work, that is what will happen.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: I know
solicitors where the family partner is under considerable criticism
from the other partners for being carried by the other partners.
Certainly two or three firms I know, particularly down in the
West Country, have had to give up because the other partners will
not allow them to continue to do family work.
Q15 Chairman: Do you think the LSC
is assuming that a legal services market has developed, rather
as envisaged under the Legal Services Act, when it has not actually
done so?
Baroness Butler-Sloss: Yes. I
think that is right.
Lucy Theis: That is precisely
the point. There is an aspiration in relation to what they want
the market to be but that is not what is happening. The fact is
that solicitors and the Bar have shared rights of advocacy for
many, many years. They operate in the way that they do because
that is the division in relation to expertise and roles. We suspect,
as we have set out in our report, that there are in fact two distinct
markets. We will wait with interest to see what Ernst and Young
say in relation to their report. Our difficulty is that at the
moment on the LSC's stated timetable neither this Committee nor
the stakeholders will have an opportunity to be able to respond
to that. Effectively, the opportunity to respond to one of the
most critical pieces of evidence is going to be denied in relation
to the decision that will be made.
Q16 Chairman: You mentioned the survey
with eight responses. Does nobody know how many solicitor advocates
there are in family law?
Caroline Little: We know that
there were 2,500 Children Panel members who have now reduced to
below 1,800 and that we are getting older and older. There are
very few young ones coming through. It is Children Panel solicitors
who tend to be the expert advocates on behalf of children to provide
consistency of representation, through seeing them in their homes
and appearing at every court level for them. There is a reducing
body of children's solicitor advocates.
Q17 Chairman: In-house solicitor
advocates?
Caroline Little: Those are in-house.
They are solicitors who conduct the cases from beginning to end.
We are independent. The reduction in expertise has been marked
for the last three years in specialist solicitor representation.
Elena Fowler: If I can broaden
this into what is happening in relation to independent social
work, under these proposals, exactly the same drift will happen
because by removing independent social work as recommended in
the proposals and putting it under CAFCASS we will lose the expertise
of the most experienced child care practitioners. We will actually
see a loss in terms of legal representation and in terms of the
social work input which will be very serious in relation to outcomes
for the most vulnerable children that we work with.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: The other
problem which is very serious is that, through no fault of CAFCASS,
they cannot cope at the moment. Therefore, to suggest that they
should be taking anything more on when they really have grave
problems of managing the work that they have at the moment is
pie in the sky. It just is not going to happen.
Judith Timms: It would have a
disastrous impact on children because there are so many children
waiting for guardians already. It would mean extra cases for CAFCASS
to absorb. I do not think anybody believes, as Baroness Butler-Sloss
has said, that CAFCASS has the capacity to do that.
Q18 Chairman: The LSC believes that
they are funded to do it. How have they got into this degree of
error?
Judith Timms: Exactly. This is
part of a crude funding war, if you like, between the DCSF and
the LSC and the MoJ. What the LSC are trying to do is to slough
off the responsibility for funding all independent social work
and push that onto CAFCASS and say, "Right, that is your
responsibility. You do the social work input. We will do the legal
input." It is a very crude split. That is why NYAS's work
has been hit so hard because NYAS is the only holistic service
for children that provides both those services, the independent
social work and the legal input, in a manner we thought the government
wanted, a joined up policy in relation to children. I think there
is a misunderstanding between DCSF and the LSC about how they
are interpreting the over-arching agenda in relation to safeguarding
children as set out in Every Child Matters. I was concerned
in speaking to the LSC that they do not appear to be accepting
the wider government responsibility for the over-arching strategy
in relation to child protection. After all, all of these matters
which we are concerned with and all the lawyers, solicitors and
social workers in court are there because we are trying to salvage
the best interests of some very vulnerable children. There does
need to be that clarification about how the LSC are interpreting
their responsibility in the wider safeguarding agenda, because
there is no evidence of it in the proposals.
Elena Fowler: To suggest that
the welfare principle is not at the heart of legislation for children
makes a mockery of children's access to justice.
Caroline Little: The ALC sat on
the care proceedings reform stakeholder and ministerial groups
and the one thing that is very clear from that is that the desire
for excellence seems to stop at the doors of the court. The responsibility
moves from one department to another. I would invite you to say
that that is an incorrect assumption in relation to children.
There should be excellence through the court process for children
at every level.
Q19 Julie Morgan: The ALC has expressed
concerns about the impact of these proposals on the public law
outline. Could you explain to us what those concerns are?
Caroline Little: Yes. The public
law outline relies on expertise of the lawyers doing the work.
The idea is that you have fewer hearings but they are very carefully
focused on the interests of the children and progressing the case
speedily and well. That means that the people attending court
on behalf of children and parties need to know how to do the work.
They have to be experts. They have to do the work behind the scenes
before going to court. They have to be very focused on the agenda
for the child, the timetable for the child, what is required,
what expertise the court needs. You cannot do that without expert
representation. It is as simple as that.
Baroness Butler-Sloss: It is a
judicially led process. My successor, the president of the Family
Division, and the judges of the High Court Family Division have
put together this particular outline, which is a case management
arrangement, so that they can get the best, the most efficient,
and have fewer court hearings but make the court hearings work
with less expense in one sense. The judges gave a response to
this LSC consultation paper, as indeed the Family Justice Council
has, chaired by the president, with their very great concerns
about the impact of these LSC proposals on the judicial process.
It is under great pressure anyway, but it will not be working
properly under the new schemes. This is why the judges are so
concerned.
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