Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what research they have funded or plan to fund to investigate the effectiveness of non-court dispute resolution support services for families, including non-legal options such as separated parenting programmes and Voice of the Child, to promote evidence-led outcomes for the benefit of children.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises the importance of supporting separating families, and where appropriate, helping them resolve their issues quickly and without the need to come to court.
The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme continues to provide £500 towards the cost of mediation. To date, over £16 million of vouchers have helped 33,000 separating parents to access mediation. Analysis of the first 7,200 completed under the scheme suggests that 69% of participants reached whole or partial agreement and did not need to go on to court.
The Department for Work and Pensions runs the Reducing Parental Conflict (RPC) programme which aims to address frequent, intense and poorly resolved conflict between parents and improve outcomes for children.
The programme, funds grants to Local Authorities in England who work in partnership with multi-agency stakeholders, commissioning relationship support for parents in conflict. Evidence of the impact of these innovative services to increase access for diverse families can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/reducing-parental-conflict-programme-evaluation.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether prevention will be included in early advice for separating couples, before court and other legal proceedings, including in family hubs; and whether relevant professionals will be appropriately curious about whether couples have considered mending their relationship and help them access support to stay together if that is what both parties want.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government recognises the importance of supporting separating families, and where appropriate, helping them resolve their issues quickly and without the need to come to court.
We know that early access to information for separating families is essential and we are working to improve the information, both online through GOV.UK, and offline via sources such as family hubs, to help inform separating families of their options before applying to court.
We also continue to work with the Department for Education to ensure that Family Hubs connect families going through parental separation to services and support locally, to ensure outcomes for their children are front and centre when agreeing child arrangements.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what progress they are making in placing early advice for separating couples, before court and other legal proceedings, in family hubs.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Education)
Family hubs, where appropriate, should connect families going through parental separation to services and support locally to ensure outcomes for their children are front and centre when agreeing child arrangements. This is to help avoid the cost and potential trauma associated with going through the court process.
In areas with a developed family hub model, local authorities may provide hub-based mediation or other services in support of separating parents, such as shared parenting programmes. This is not a requirement of the programme but is strongly encouraged for areas seeking to enhance their offer.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what training judges will receive to apply the new Family Procedure Rules and to ensure that parents are aware of and can access the full range of legal and non-legal non-court dispute resolution support services
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Ministry of Justice is not responsible for judicial training. This is the responsibility of the Judicial College.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether the training provided to judges to apply the new Family Procedure Rules is delivered by judges or experts over the full range of legal and non-legal non-court dispute resolution support services
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Ministry of Justice is not responsible for judicial training. This is the responsibility of the Judicial College.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many FM5 forms are registered on court files as having been filed before first hearing, in compliance with the Family Procedure Rules issued in April.
Answered by Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
His Majesty’s Courts and Tribunals Service does not currently hold data on how many FM5 forms are filed before the first hearing.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether they intend either (1) to exempt prison family services providers from the increase in employers' National Insurance contributions or (2) to ensure that they are funded to cover those additional costs.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The Ministry of Justice does not have the legal authority to exempt any organisation from National Insurance Contribution increases and has not made any decisions, at this time, to fund any suppliers to cover these costs.
The Ministry of Justice and HMPPS will follow guidance from the Government and will continue to work with all suppliers to understand the impact of the recent changes to National Insurance Contributions and the feasibility of all suppliers, including Family Services, to continue to deliver their existing contractual obligations.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what is the total annual budget for prisoner rehabilitation services; and how much of this is allocated to (1) family services, (2) employment training, (3) education and (4) other itemised rehabilitation activities.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Reoffending costs society over £22 billion a year and we know that access to valulable rehabilitation is an important tool in reducing that reoffending.
The overall Prisoner Rehabilitation Service budget for FY 24/25 is £360 million.
Family Services - £12 million
Employment Training - £25 million
Education including Prisoner Education contracts - £191 million
Other itemised rehabilitation activities - £132 million
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what leadership training is routinely provided to officers moving up the ranks in the Prison Service.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
Officers have a wide range of leadership training available to them as they progress through the ranks.
All Ministry of Justice staff have access to a wide suite of cross-government training products available via Government Campus (part of Cabinet Office). These product topics include Coaching, Building your Team, and Career Development.
All Ministry of Justice staff also have access to two, four-day, intensive Leadership Schools per annum, focused on unlocking the potential to improve and transform their leadership capabilities. Leadership School provides keynote speeches, expert-led workshops, and in-depth peer reflection sessions, to ensure that leaders are equipped to use new capabilities in their roles.
In addition, MoJ HQ has developed a new HMPPS Leadership and Management Offer specifically for HMPPS staff (elements of this include the HMPPS People Manager Handbook and HMPPS People Manager Essentials Programme). HMPPS staff also have access to a wealth of free online resources on the myLearning Learning Management System.
There are several funded Leadership apprenticeships on offer for HMPPS staff, and a small number of leadership training interventions for HMPPS are provided by external providers.
The Spark Custodial scheme is an operational fast-track scheme for Public Sector Prisons, open to Operational Bands 2-4 and Non-Operational up to and including Band 6, that enables them to progress to Head of Function. The scheme lasts around 30 months for operational participants and 36 months for non-operational participants.
Asked by: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Ministry of Justice:
To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to reform the prisoner telephony contract with the external commercial provider so that inmates are subject to the same terms and conditions as customers in the community.
Answered by Lord Timpson - Minister of State (Ministry of Justice)
The current supplier of the telephony service provides a service within the public prison estate which is not directly comparable to the services they provide to their customers in the community. In the prison estate, they also provide the network infrastructure and devices, a call management solution to allow for management of PIN phone accounts and to support call monitoring, and a call routing service to connect to phone numbers that have been permitted by HMPPS. The cost of the service is predominantly funded through prisoner credit purchases.