Keeping Watch on the Purse Strings

Dealing recently with a case where a publicly mother ordered to make a child available for contact but who had concerns about its continuation was refused public funding to make an application to vary until such time as the father had applied to enforce. How can that be a) in the interests of the child, causing delay [...]

Common Cause

It’s not just the bar who are unhappy about the proposed changes to the family legal aid scheme. The penny is beginning to drop for solicitors too, as is evident from this article in the Gazette.

Family Legal Aid Developments

A lot has been happening behind the scenes: Following the sending of an open letter to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee, the Family Law Bar Association, the Bar Council, the Association of Lawyers for Children, and the National Youth Advocacy Service made representations to the House of Commons Justice Select Committee this week to [...]

Granny Solidarity

I initially didn’t pay much attention to the proposals made this week by Grandparents Plus that grannies* should receive financial recognition for their childcare of grandchildren. I had gone so far as to wonder why parents should not be able to receive working tax credit for childminding provided by extended family as well as registered childminders, but this seemed [...]

Open Sesame

Looking back I appear not to have posted about Jack Straw’s December announcement about the opening of the family courts, although I have since posted on the topic here and here. Although I’m sure I prepared a post on this announcement I suspect it went the way of several boxes of important ‘stuff’ during my [...]

Red Light for Children’s Databases

A report published by the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust this week entitled ‘The Database State – Scrap it Fix it or Keep it?’ has given the ‘red light’ on privacy grounds to several databases used to track children for child protection purposes, namely ContactPoint (details of every child in the country and who is working [...]

Bankruptcy Reconsidered – Paulin v Paulin v Cativo Ltd

The judgment of the Court of Appeal in the case of Paulin v Paulin v Cativo Ltd [2009] EWCA Civ 221 is (unusually for a bankruptcy related AR decision) a really interesting read (thanks Family Lore Focus). It covers two discrete issues: the annulment of a husband’s petition for bankruptcy in the context of ancillary relief proceedings (updating previous [...]

Plain Stupid

Some chaps ‘associated with’ F4J have apparently been arrested trying to get onto the runway at Heathrow this morning, reports the Telegraph. It has been suggested by Matt O’Connor that they may have been trying to ‘steal back the mantle’ from the Plane Stupid protesters. It’s unclear from the piece I’ve read whether he purports [...]

Ruminations of an Apologist

I often feel as if I may come across on this blog as some kind of apologist for the family justice system. Those who know me would chortle at the notion of me as propagandist for The Man, but I am conscious that I often find myself defending the system against a partial or inaccurate attack from the [...]

NSPCC Backs Family Bar

Family Law Newswatch reports: The NSPCC is supporting the Bar Council and the Family Law Bar Association’s campaign to stop the Ministry of Justice’s proposals to cut family legal aid. NSPCC lawyer Barbara Esam said: “The proposed, repeated cuts in legal support in family law cases comes at the worse possible time, as the pressure [...]