Source · Select Committees · Public Accounts Committee
45th Report - Improving family court services for children
Public Accounts Committee
HC 883
Published 12 September 2025
Recommendations
2
Accepted
Assess and report on improving accountability for family justice system by December 2025.
Recommendation
The family justice system is complex, but excessive fragmentation hinders transparency, leading to poor accountability for service improvement and overall performance. The family justice system involves many organisations across government and the independent judiciary. There is no single body accountable …
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Government Response Summary
The government accepted the recommendation, agreeing to assess current accountability arrangements for family justice and report back to the Committee by December 2025 with plans for improvements and better support for Family Justice Boards.
HM Treasury
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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 …
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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.
HM Treasury
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4
Accepted
Clarify required family court capacity and plans to resolve judge and social worker shortages.
Recommendation
Shortages in the number of district judges and social workers are contributing to delays, and to significant regional differences in timeliness of resolving cases. There are wide variations in durations of cases; for example, in December 2024, the average duration …
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Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation, stating it has already increased judicial capacity, assesses family court capacity annually, and expects judicial recruitment campaign outcomes by Spring 2026. It further details ongoing investments by the DfE to address social worker shortages, including increased numbers, improved retention, new induction programs, and statutory guidance on agency staff.
HM Treasury
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5
Accepted
Set out a joined-up data and evidence strategy for family justice within six months.
Recommendation
MoJ and DfE do not have the data they need to fully understand the reasons for poor performance and design well targeted improvements. There remain significant gaps in family justice data. HMCTS does not collect enough demographic information on children, …
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Government Response Summary
The government accepts the recommendation, stating Cafcass Cymru will outline plans for a joined-up data and evidence strategy in 2026-2027 to improve data sharing, address gaps, track outcomes, and understand causes of delay. This includes piloting a unique child identifier and introducing new data modules for the Children in Need census by September 2025.
HM Treasury
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6
Deferred
Publish plan and timeline for wider Pathfinder rollout, assessing funding reallocation within 12 months.
Recommendation
‘Pathfinder’ pilots present an opportunity to improve private law performance, but MoJ has not yet made necessary preparations to roll the pilot out nationally. The MoJ’s ‘Pathfinder’ pilot is now rolled out across six family court areas, with plans for …
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Government Response Summary
The government agrees with the recommendation to publish a plan and timeline for the wider rollout of Pathfinder, but defers its publication until after the conclusion of departmental funding decisions through the Spending Review 2026-2027 and the approval of the business case.
HM Treasury
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Conclusions (25)
1
Conclusion
Not Addressed
On the basis of a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General, we took evidence from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Department for Education (DfE), HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) and the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) on improving family court services for children.1
Government Response Summary
The government's response outlines plans for improving timeliness in family justice, developing a cross-system strategy by April 2026, and reviewing performance indicators, but this does not address the content of the committee's introductory conclusion.
7
Conclusion
Family justice faced rising demand before the COVID-19 pandemic, with public law receipts peaking in 2017 at 19,389, while private law receipts peaked in 2020 at 55,711. The backlog of cases increased by 2021 and cases were taking longer to settle.8 The number of outstanding cases remains large, but has …
8
Conclusion
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 …
9
Conclusion
In December 2024, there were still over 4,000 children involved in public and private law proceedings which had been open for over 100 weeks.14 MoJ told us that by the end of March 2025, the number of those waiting for over 100 weeks had reduced by 48% for public law …
10
Conclusion
Since 2014, there has been a statutory requirement that most public law cases should be completed within 26 weeks, but this statutory deadline has never been met.16 There is no equivalent statutory timeline for private law. For 2024–25, four of the five priority indicators set by the FJB on improving …
11
Conclusion
Successful delivery of services requires strong accountability with clear roles and responsibilities. Responsibilities for family justice are dispersed across many organisations across government and there is no single body accountable for overall performance. Complex and fragmented funding arrangements and information flows for family justice make accountability more challenging.18 Witnesses agreed …
12
Conclusion
The ministerial-led FJB was established to help organisations involved in family justice work together effectively, to improve performance and hold organisations to account internally. Although it aimed to meet quarterly, this group only met on average 2.5 times per year over the period June 2018 to December 2024. Frequent turnover …
13
Conclusion
There is no shared strategy for the whole system across all the departments involved. DfE told us that there is a published strategy document for children’s social care, and that the FJB has shared objectives and targets. MoJ and DfE accepted, however, that they could put more narrative and clarity …
14
Conclusion
MoJ and DfE told us that LFJBs are a vital part of the system, bringing local partners together to focus on local problems which will not be the same in different parts of the country. LFJBs have an important role to play in improving local services, but they are non-statutory …
15
Conclusion
We asked the witnesses what they were going to do to address a range of inefficiencies in family court processes identified by the NAO. For example, poor quality information input by applicants was causing rework and delays, although there was no collective understanding of how often this occurs. The NAO …
16
Conclusion
In public law, 32% of cases had at least one hearing cancelled on the day, which contributes to delays.27 HMCTS told us that the main reason cases are cancelled or adjourned, in over 25% of cases, is non-compliance with what the judge has ordered parties to do. Sometimes this is …
17
Conclusion
The proportion of cases where neither party was represented in family courts was 39% in 2024, three times that in 2013.31 Many stakeholders who provided written submissions told us that people going through legal disputes without legal representation (litigants in person), often feel overwhelmed by the family court process, including …
18
Conclusion
Keeping cases out of the courts, where possible, can be less contentious and lead to quicker settlements, saving money and benefiting children.36 Both MoJ and DfE are taking measures to keep more cases out of court that do not need to be there, such as through family group decision- making …
19
Conclusion
DfE told us its major contribution to the overall system is to reduce the flow of cases to family courts. It told us that successive governments have under-invested in children’s social care but the Spending Review in June this year announced over £2 billion of new investment in Children’s social …
20
Conclusion
In some regions, particularly London, children have to wait much longer than in other areas to have their cases concluded.41 In December 2024, the average duration for public law cases was 24 weeks in Wales but 53 weeks in London; and for private law, it was 18 weeks for Wales …
21
Conclusion
MoJ and HMCTS told us that cases can take longer in London partly because there are more complicated cases, often with international dimensions. There is also a complicated administrative landscape with 33 different local authorities all doing things differently.44 HMCTS and Cafcass added that shortages in district judges and social …
22
Conclusion
The capacity required to manage the caseload efficiently on a timely basis, both at a national level, and in each part of the country, has not been set out.46 MoJ argued that there is more than enough capacity in the system overall to meet demand, on the grounds that backlogs …
23
Conclusion
An overall assessment of the drivers of performance is important to support the system to focus on areas most likely to secure improvements. A whole-system approach is needed to deliver outcomes no individual body can achieve alone.50 MoJ told us that capacity, demand, case complexity and productivity all drive the …
24
Conclusion
There are significant gaps in family justice data. These data gaps include, for example, demographic information on children and their families; data on outcomes for children; and data on the prevalence of domestic abuse in private law cases.56 There are also issues with the quality of family courts data collected. …
25
Conclusion
Acknowledged
We asked MoJ and DfE why the system was not working as well as it should, given that better data sharing should allow improvements, and whether this was evidence of complacency.58 Delays in cases weigh heavily on children, in particular, domestic abuse victims.59 Gaps in the data mean that MoJ …
Government Response Summary
Acknowledges delays, data gaps, and differing data collection methods, and the potential of the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill.
26
Conclusion
Acknowledged
MoJ told us that there are separate accounting officers for each part of the system, and that each could account for the costs for which they were responsible.62 MoJ accepted, however, that they did not know the cost of the family justice system in totality, including spending by local authorities.63 …
Government Response Summary
Acknowledges the MoJ's statement about separate accounting officers and the lack of knowledge regarding the total cost of the family justice system, including local authority spending.
27
Conclusion
Not Addressed
MoJ told us that it has been piloting a new model for private law through the ‘Pathfinder’ scheme, the aim of which was to improve experience for victims of domestic abuse by taking a whole system approach to improving services. Key features of the initiative include: 58 Q 39 59 …
Government Response Summary
The government response contains no relevant content.
28
Conclusion
Acknowledged
The new model reduces the number of court hearings and redistributes costs across the system.69 Evaluations from the two early pilots found that costs for local authorities more than doubled as social workers were involved in more cases, while the judicial cost halved due to a reduced number of hearings.70 …
Government Response Summary
Acknowledges the cost redistribution of the new model and the need for reallocation of funding to support Cafcass and local authority social workers.
29
Conclusion
Acknowledged
MoJ told us that progress with improving timeliness for private law, including in London, will depend on the speed with which it rolls out the Pathfinder model.72 However, despite positive evaluations, wide stakeholder support, and the potential to improve timeliness, progress in rolling out the new model is slow. Pathfinder …
Government Response Summary
Acknowledges the progress of the Pathfinder model roll-out depends on funding and preparatory work.
30
Conclusion
Not Addressed
MoJ has not set out a plan for its wider adoption, including assessment of what funding will be required, how it is going to work with partners to ensure that resources are available and realigned, or setting a timetable. MoJ told us that it would now develop a plan for …
Government Response Summary
The government response contains no relevant content.