Why has the state has got to stop subsidising family court disputes? By subsidising family court disputes the state is directly contributing to the adversarial norm of family dispute resolution. It’s also adding to the psychosomatic problems that many children experience when their parents separate. 

The most common way in the UK of resolving a dispute as a family unit tends to be through conversation. There can be few cohabiting parents who don’t occasionally have differences of opinion about some aspect of their children’s upbringing. When this happens a conversation will typically help. Both parents get the opportunity to share their views, worries and feelings. and reach an understanding that sits well enough with each of them.

The absurdity of fighting over children in court

We all surely agree that it would be absurd for these parents to go to court? Absurd that they would allow their children to experience them arguing in a court room. Absurd that they would be prepared to spend thousands of pounds of family money on legal fees. Absurd that they started a process that usually takes months not weeks conclude. And absurd that they would prefer a stranger to make a decision for them instead of making their own. Yet that is precisely what tends to happen.

Society positively encourages parents to go to court to resolve their differences. Even the government, which has helped to promote the benefits of mediation, subliminally encourages court applications. “How so?” Well, it’s encouraged by the relatively low price an applicant has to pay – £215 – in order to lodge a court application which then secures an almost limitless number of court hours to achieve the outcome.

£215 per applicant cannot not remotely equate to the true cost to taxpayers of running the family courts – the cost of the buildings, the upkeep, running, equipment and materials and the salaries of court staff and judges. Which means that going to court is heavily subsidised.  So it’s rather an attractive price when £215 may buy only a couple of hours of mediation or an hour or so of a lawyer’s time (both of which, unlike the court fee, are subject to VAT).

The playing field for mediation is not level

Mediation and legal services are privately run enterprises. They must charge clients in ways which cover the cost of their buildings, salaries etc. Consequently, none can offer services that will provide an outcome for the same price of a court application fee. And the government wonders why parents are still queuing up to go to court instead of getting help to make decisions for themselves.

If the government really wants to encourage parents to use mediation services instead of using court services, they should create a level playing field between the cost of going to court and the cost of the mediation/lawyer alternatives. The cost of making applications to family courts should be increased. Not for those applications for orders for protection, such as injunctions, but for those applications where parents cannot agree their children’s arrangements between them.

We must demand  the government to put the price up so that it covers the actual cost to the state and by doing so it will end the acute embarrassment of parental punch ups being subsidised by the state.

I am Stephen G Anderson. I am a professional mediator.

Stephen G Anderson, family mediator

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