The government has published its response to the recommendations made by the independent family justice review panel, in which it outlines its plans to reform the system to help strengthen parenting, reduce the time it takes cases to progress through the courts, and simplify the family justice system.

The government has announced its intention to produce a legislative statement emphasising the importance of children having an ongoing relationship with both their parents after family separation, where that is safe, and in the child's best interests.

The government is mindful of the lessons which must be learnt from the Australian experience of legislating in this area, which were highlighted by the Review and led them to urge caution. It will therefore consider very carefully how legislation can be framed to ensure that a meaningful relationship is not about equal division of time, but the quality of parenting received by the child.

It will speed up care and adoption cases by reforming the public law system and increasing transparency. The government also intends to introduce legislation at the earliest opportunity to enable a six month time limit to be set and wherever possible it will expect cases to be completed more quickly, while retaining the flexibility to extend complex cases where this is genuinely in the children’s interest.

Other key commitments in the government’s response include:

• to consider how parenting agreements could be used to emphasise the need for parents to consider how the child can maintain a relationship with other close family members, such as grandparents,
• to reduce expense and delay caused by the excessive use of expert reports, strengthening their quality and ensuring only essential reports are commissioned,
• to reduce the amount of time spent by judges and courts scrutinising care plans, focusing instead on the core or essential components when making care orders,
• to bring court social work closer to other court services by transferring Cafcass sponsorship to the Ministry of Justice, and
• to create a single family court across England and Wales, with a single point of entry, to simplify the system and make it more accessible for families using the system.