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26 September 2014 / Kirstie Gibson
Issue: 7623 / Categories: Features , Family
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What lies ahead?

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Kirstie Gibson considers the report of the Family Mediation Task Force & the Ministry of Justice’s response

The Family Mediation Task Force (FMTF) was created in response to the fall in publicly-funded mediations and the rise of litigants in person and chaired by David Norgrove, formerly of the Family Justice Review, and current chair of the Family Justice Board. The FMTF membership includes representatives from Resolution, the Family Justice Council, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) and Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service, together with family law practitioners and academics.

Despite the government’s long professed love for mediation as a way to divert family disputes away from the courts, there has been a steep decline in public spending on mediation. The FMTF report summarises the immediate issues facing the mediation sector and makes recommendations to encourage out-of-court dispute resolution in family cases.

How did we get here?

The Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (LASPO) changed the landscape for legal aid in family matters, removing legal aid from most private law family law cases except for: the

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