A Failure of Implementation (Children and Families Act 2014 Committee Report)

Lord Farmer Excerpts

Wednesday 6th September 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Farmer (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the indomitable noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, a tireless campaigner for children and families—in particular for better mental health services for them. I acknowledge her diligence and that of the post-legislative scrutiny committee in taking on such a wide-ranging remit. Many of its conclusions chimed with the Children’s Commissioner’s Family Review, which reported at the same time, and The Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

Early intervention was recognised by the committee as being of essential value to the plethora of policy areas which the Children and Families Act 2014 cuts across, including in private family law proceedings. It cited the value of early legal advice and mediation in reducing demands on the family justice system. Its report also highlighted the need for better join-up of different public sector systems and of these with the voluntary and private sectors.

I will focus on how and, in particular, where we could deliver early intervention solutions in family law that integrate previously siloed systems. We also need a more joined-up approach to mental health and to support parents whose children are not attending school for reasons related to anxiety, depression and very low well-being. The Chief Medical Officer’s recent guidance is that school non-attendance worsens these problems, but parents need help to overcome children’s reticence.

Starting with family law, help for families who are struggling before, during and after separation needs to be integrated with a comprehensive system of family support which has prevention and early intervention at its heart. Since the early days of the welfare state, its Labour Party architects acknowledged that free healthcare and education would not realise their transformational potential without easily accessible help for parents struggling with a wide range of problems. The Second World War had a long tail of effect on families, particularly the emotional cost to children of high levels of divorce and separation from parents. These trends have continued: one-third of children now live in separated families, where there is frequently ongoing conflict between parents.

Welfare state architects’ call for family centres in the late 1940s was not then heeded, but it was repeated in the Children Act 1989 and by the Audit Commission in 1994. Sure Start children’s centres were an important development. However, provision did not move beyond children’s early years or help relationships between parents before, during and after separation. Like so many other promising policies, Sure Start needed to be evolved, and this was the aim of the family hubs movement. At this point, I declare my unremunerated interest as director and guarantor of the Family Hubs Network Ltd, a not-for-profit consultancy on family hubs. When we set up the network to support this movement, there were around 150 family hubs in England; around 480 have now registered with us. Family hubs are key sites where early intervention takes place so that families can overcome difficulties and build stronger relationships. Crucially, they also network buildings, state services and other organisations providing family support in an area. The family hub enables families with children aged from nought to 19 to access this integrated offer. Family hubs are now official government policy and are being rolled out across more than half of local authorities in England.

When family hubs were first articulated by my parliamentary adviser, Dr Callan, in the Centre for Social Justice’s 2007 Breakthrough Britain report, she highlighted the need for them to incorporate the work of family relationship centres. In Norway and Australia, these provide mediation and quasi-legal support away from courts. The CSJ was concerned that the sharp reduction in legal aid for private family law following the Carter review in 2006 would restrict access to justice, while acknowledging that high reliance on the courts was both very costly to the public purse and drove an adversarial rather than a solutions-based approach. The President of the Family Division of the High Court, Sir Andrew McFarlane, recently said that 38% of separating parents were using court processes to sort out disputes.

The Family Solutions Group, a private family law reform group, says that while

“families at risk of harm or abuse or who have particular challenges may need the family court; most other families need high quality, holistic and affordable support away from court”.

They should be steered towards the many state and other agencies who see the earliest signs that relationships between parents are becoming fraught. These include teachers, health visitors, GPs, advisors in citizens advice bureaux and possibly churches, but there needs to be a recognisable place where families can get that specialist help. This is where the family hubs model needs further development. Senior family court judges are keen to join up family courts with family hubs as part of the Government’s wider family law reform programme, which includes the Pathfinder pilots in the family courts in Dorset and North Wales.

The role of the family court would be to liaise with the hub for out-of-court solutions and support in individual cases, to triage for urgency, safeguarding issues or co-parenting and to ensure appropriate support during and at the conclusion of proceedings. The family hub would also identify urgent and safeguarding cases and provide legal help. The Family Solutions Group has described how family separation consultants could be based there to provide information and assessment meetings alongside mediators, alternative dispute resolution services and supervised child contact. Parents would have access to all the other help in family hubs, such as parenting support, debt counselling, substance misuse programmes and mental health services.

Former senior family judge, his honour Martin Dancey, drew up plans for a future family hub to be properly networked with the family court involved in the Pathfinder because, he said:

“While Pathfinder can operate without hubs, I see hubs as integral to optimal solutions for families.”


Our most senior professionals want integrated and accessible family support, but so too does the general public. Polling I commissioned before the summer found that 78% of the general public agree with the statement:

“Supporting families is not just about subsidising childcare or giving parents money, but providing a range of services, guidance and advice.”


For 56% of people, drop-in centres are perceived to be a main priority for any government family policy. The most important family support and parenting services are deemed to be those that are low or no cost, provide immediate support and are accessible in one place.

Returning to this report, in their response the Government said that their prioritising of early intervention is at the heart of their own plans for reform. So, will the Government develop model plans for family courts to work with family hubs in the way Judge Dancey describes? Early intervention would save much delay, heartache and significant costs. The message is loud and clear that siloed, disjointed working is not helpful to families. Again, what steps are the Government taking to encourage the DHSC and DfE to work jointly in family hubs, not just schools, to deliver children and young people’s tier 1 and 2 mental health support?

Anxiety and depression among young people are potent drivers of school absenteeism. Many parents feel powerless and at their wits’ end. They want to be part of the solution but need support and know-how so they can help their children re-engage with education. Through a pilot in the Bury St Edmunds Bridge family hub, professionals work with parents and young people in a trusted local church base to address the perceived and actual barriers to attending school regularly. We need to evaluate and build on such promising practice elsewhere: family courts and schools urgently need hubs to fulfil their game-changing potential to support families.

Parental separation, mental ill-health and school non-attendance are costing the state billions. Early intervention and more joined-up working require a paradigm shift towards better, more efficient and more fruitful ways of working, which will also be cheaper. Key reports commissioned by the Government, as well as this committee, keep saying this: we need action this day.