Background to the report

Family justice is concerned with keeping children safe and helping families resolve disputes. It includes cases on protecting children, who children live with and how they spend time with their family, as well as divorce, adoption and associated financial arrangements.

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In this report we focus on the two categories of family justice cases that involve legal disputes over children: ‘public law’ and ‘private law’. Public law cases are brought by local authorities to protect a child from harm. Private law cases involve parental disputes, such as the living or contact arrangements for their child. These two types of cases are among the most costly and time-consuming family court cases as they can involve vulnerable children, substance misuse and domestic abuse.

Family justice involves the judiciary and several central government organisations and public bodies working together. The Department for Education (DfE) and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) are the lead policy departments for public law and private law, respectively. Local authorities are statutorily responsible for safeguarding children and social work. HM Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) is responsible for administration of the courts and judges and magistrates hear the cases. The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) and its equivalent in Wales, Cafcass Cymru, advise the courts on what is safe for children and in their best interests. Independent solicitors and barristers represent families at court and may be funded by legal aid.

Scope of the report

This report reviews the government’s approach to improving how public law and private law cases are managed, with a specific focus on improving family justice services for children. This report covers England and Wales. The main government bodies we have audited are MoJ, DfE, HMCTS and Cafcass in England. Cafcass Cymru is a devolved service, delivered and funded by the Welsh Government, and is therefore outside the scope of this report.

We do not audit the judiciary, which is constitutionally independent of the executive branches of government. Therefore, although we are aware of judicial-led improvement work, we have not evaluated this work in our audit. We have focused on the family courts process from where a case is brought to court onwards, and have not audited the work of local authorities. We have not audited the quality of children’s services or the outcomes of cases.

Video summary

Jenny George, the report’s director, summarises our findings.

Conclusions

Some of the most vulnerable people in society are subject to family court proceedings. Delays in resolving cases can create additional stress for families, increase the risk of harm to children and increase cost. Family courts have recovered better than Crown Courts following the COVID-19 pandemic, and the family court caseload has declined by 18,081 (28%) since August 2021.

Despite this, children and families are still waiting too long to have their cases resolved. The statutory time limit to resolve most public law cases within 26 weeks has never been met nationally since it was introduced in 2014, and some open cases are nearly two years old. Delays can lead to more delays as evidence or assessments need to be updated, and costs grow.

The reasons for delays are varied and complex, but the departments do not understand which factors are contributing most to delays, meaning that targeting improvements is difficult. There is limited evidence on what works, but family justice partners are trialling a range of projects to resolve cases outside of court and to reduce delays, with some early improvements noted in some areas. However, some areas still face notable delays.

There are several barriers that government must tackle to better manage the family justice system, including having good-quality data, a system-wide assessment of the key factors driving poor performance and a better understanding of costs. Until government takes effective action to address these areas, its work to improve family justice will not deliver best value for money.

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Press release

View press release (21 May 2025)

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