Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
Recommendation 3
3
Accepted
Improve efficiency in family justice processes and clarify £2 billion social care investment.
Recommendation
There are inefficiencies in systems and processes that worsen experiences and outcomes for children and families, making it harder to achieve best value for money. Around 32% of public law cases have at least one hearing cancelled before the hearing takes place, leading to delays and wasted resources. Not only that, but current processes can lead to errors, duplication or unnecessary effort. We heard about some improvements for public law but there are still significant inefficiencies in systems and processes both for public and for private law. Many families, particularly litigants in person, find it difficult to understand what they need to do, leading to additional pressure on court resources. The average number of hearings and the number of expert reports per case have also increased in recent years. When cases are delayed it becomes more likely that family situations will change before the case concludes, leading to the need for new expert reports and court hearings. Settling cases out of court such as through mediation can be quicker, with benefits for children, but uptake of MoJ’s mediation voucher scheme has remained too low. Helping families stay together also helps improve court performance through reducing demand on the struggling court system. To that end, the Spending Review of June 2025 announced £2 billion funding for new investments in children’s social care, part of which is intended to provide better family support. recommendation MoJ and DfE should take steps to improve efficiency in family justice systems and processes by: • making a system-wide assessment of where process inefficiencies impact on performance; 4 • putting in place arrangements to learn from and embed good practice; • supporting families, in particular, litigants in person, to better navigate the system; • promoting alternative resolutions where possible; and • clarifying how the additional £2 billion of new investment in children’s social care will be spent, for example, in impro
Government Response Summary
The government agrees to improve efficiency across the family justice system. It will outline implications of inefficiency assessments and next steps in an April 2026 strategy, commit over £6 million to support legal services and alternative resolutions, and leverage £2 billion for children's social care transformation with details published in March 2025. It also commits to strengthening arrangements for learning and embedding good practice within the April 2026 strategy.
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. £2.4 billion for the Families First Partnership programme. This includes: • Continuing the £523 million investment available in 2025-26 for each year of the multi-year settlement. • £319 million from the Transformation Fund announced at the Spending Review. • New funding of £547 million over the Settlement. The plans and investment will ensure children can remain with their families, support more children to live with kinship carers or in fostering families, and fix the broken care market to tackle profiteering and put children needs first. This work, particularly in the pre-proceedings space, will drive down demand in the family court, as fewer children end up in care proceedings, and ensure that cases ending up in court are better prepared through: • The implementation of the social care commitments in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, including new Family Group Decision Making and Multi-Agency Child Protection Team measures. • The Family Help and multi-agency child protection reforms, delivered through the Families First Partnership Programme, which combine the best elements of evidenced programmes into a single delivery model to create a seamless, non-stigmatising offer of support delivered by multi-disciplinary community-based teams. Family Help will prioritise earlier intervention and maintaining consistent relationships between children/families and practitioners. • Investment enables local authorities to undertake large-scale system transformation. It will also mean local authorities can recruit more Family Support workers/ Family Help Lead Practitioners who can then spend more time with children and families, or fund commissioned services such as mental health or domestic abuse work. Details were published in March 2025. 3d. PAC recommendation: [MoJ and DfE should take steps to improve efficiency in family justice systems and processes by:] • putting in place arrangements to learn from and embed good practice. The government agrees with the Committee’s recommendation. scope to go further and how arrangements to learn from and embed good practice can be strengthened when published in April 2026. The strategy will be developed in collaboration with key partners across the family justice system and will reflect the important role that Local Family Justice Boards play in driving local improvement and aligning national priorities with local delivery.