The recent announcement that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has extended the Family Mediation Voucher Scheme by another 12 months has been met with praise from some quarters, including the Family Mediation Council (FMC). The FMC has highlighted that ‘early analysis from the first 7,200 families to use the scheme showed more than two-thirds reached agreement without the need to go to court’—on the surface, this sounds like a success story worth celebrating.
However, beneath the headlines lies a set of deeper concerns that the mediation profession—and the public—should not ignore. While the voucher scheme has undoubtedly encouraged some separating couples to explore mediation, it also masks the ongoing underfunding of family mediation and the wider issues surrounding access to justice in private family law cases.
Since the removal of legal aid for most private family law disputes in 2013, family mediation was promoted as the government’s flagship alternative to court proceedings. Yet, referrals to family mediation nosedived—demonstrating that simply directing
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