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Reports

Francis Plowden's report - Read More: Court fees in child care cases review

The Children's Commissioner's report - Read More - Children and young people's views regarding media access to family courts.

Preparing for Care and Supervision Proceedings (MoJ)
A best practice guide for use by all professionals involved with children and families pre-proceedings and in preparation for applications made under section 31 of the Children Act 1989. Produced by the Care Proceedings Programme, Ministry of Justice.  Read More

HoC Justice Committee - Family Legal Aid Reform
Eighth Report of Session 2008–09. Report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence.   Read More

Bearing Good Witness - The Chief Medical Officer’s report
Proposals for reforming the delivery of medical expert evidence in family law cases. Publication of the report followed some very high profile court cases that called into question the quality of medical expert witnesses in certain types of cases. Read More

Applications for Care Orders
Her Honour Judge Lesley Newton, Chair of the Safeguarding Committee of the FJC. Read More

Inter-disciplinary Training and The Mapping Exercise - to help Local FJCs to enable new entrants to get the best from training events they provide. Read More

Latest Reports from the FJC Committees (July 2009)

  • Executive - The Executive Committee has approved the setting up of a contact list of organisations which may be interested in aspects of the FJC’s work, to whom the Secretariat will send minutes of meetings. Read More

  • ADR - Beverley Sayers spoke at the LFJC Conference about the need for ADR and encouraged the Locals to set up their own ADR committees. Read More

  • Children in Families - The consultation on private law fees is not now expected until the autumn.  Read More

  • Children in Safeguarding Proceedings - Francis Plowden, who has, following Lord Laming’s report, been appointed by the MoJ to look into the impact of the increase in fees local authorities pay for instituting public law proceedings, attended the last meeting of the Committee to explain the remit of his review and to hear their views. Read More

  • Diversity Committee - The Committee held a meeting in Birmingham on 30 March as part of its series of out- of-London events. The meeting looked at issues raised by the local representatives including mediation, culturally- appropriate psychological assessments and the use of experts in the family courts. Read More

  • Domestic Violence - The Working Group responded to the Home Office consultation on ending violence against women and girls on behalf of the Council. It will also be responding to the consultation on the new form C1A. Read More

  • Education and Training - Members have assisted with the rewriting and proof reading of the updated guide to the family justice system for the FJC website. A meeting has taken place with representatives from the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). Read More

  • Experts - The Committee continues to seek a resolution of the problems encountered by the General Medical Council in obtaining transcripts of hearings when dealing with complaints about expert witnesses. It is also considering how best to take forward work on providing feedback to experts on the quality of their evidence. Read More

  • Money and Property - At its last meeting the Committee discussed the issue of instructing a single joint expert in financial cases and how valuable this is. Read More

  • Parents and Relatives Group - The Group held a joint meeting with the Children in Safeguarding Committee at which it considered a number of issues of mutual interest, including the role of Independent Reviewing Officers, hybrid cases with both public and private elements, media access to the family courts and the parent pack that has been produced by the Ministry of Justice. Read More

  • Voice of the Child Sub-Group - The guidance for judges speaking with children has been finalised and forwarded to the President for approval.  Read More