No role for lawyers to boost mediation

Recommendations offered by the Family Mediation Taskforce to Government start off well enough. Its title is spot on: 'What more can be done locally and nationally to encourage more people to use family mediation to resolve their disputes?'

Alas that’s about as far as it goes. The report reminds the reader that taskforces tend to be commissioned by politicians for politicians. They are not supposed to embarrass ministers or recommend they scrap flawed assumptions.

In this instance it’s clear that the Taskforce wasn’t convened to question the enduring wisdom of trying to establish family mediation as a front line service despite it living in the shadow of referring lawyers for over three decades.

Judging by the Taskforce’s recommendations it seems Messrs Grayling and Hughes still believe that some policy tweaks and low-level spending will turn the aforementioned cultural norm on its head.

With no serious challenge to ministerial thinking the recommendations made by the Taskforce do little to address how to establish...

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