Select committee: Public Accounts Committee
Conclusion 8
45th Report - Improving family court services for children
Published 12 Sep 2025
Addressed to HM Treasury
Public Accounts Committee Improving family court services for children All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
In 2024, the mean durations of public law and private law cases were 36 and 41 weeks respectively, significantly higher than the 27 weeks and 26 weeks on average in 2018.10 MoJ and HMCTS told us that the average duration for private and public law cases has reduced by about three weeks over the last year.11 MOJ stated that it hopes to be able to make similar incremental reductions within the next year.12 HMCTS explained that, in its view, these figures undersell what has been achieved, as it had prioritised older cases, the effect of which was to bring up the average age of the cases closed. The national averages do, however, conceal big regional variations in case duration, with Wales performing well but cases taking significantly longer in London and the South East.13
From: Public Accounts Committee, 45th Report - Improving family court services for children (HC 883), 12 September 2025
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 4 June 2026 (deadline 12 November 2025).