Lady Brenda Hale: Simplifying the proceedings of family court interactions
I’m always interested when I hear what I recognise as service thinking from political leaders in areas of our public services.
In an episode from earlier this year of the BBC podcast Radical podcast – Law and Order: How to Fix Britain’s Courts, Amol Rajan interviewed Lady Brenda Hale, the former president of the UK’s Supreme Court. Over the course of the interview, she explained how cuts to legal aid have impacted the family justice system and why there needs to be a more streamlined approach.
The need to simplify complexity at the point of service
In the interview, Lady Hale talks about how most family court interactions involve four separate cases, but how people don’t think like that.
To highlight the service thinking: this is the idea that, in the family courts, no one should have four sets of proceedings to do with finances, to do with children, to do with divorce. The real need is to simplify this, which would save everyone time and money.
It was Lady Hale’s description of this, with the historical service element of the family court system, that stood out most to me:
“…for reasons which are historical, but it’s quite hard to put your finger on, what we’ve got into is a situation where if a family breaks up, there could be three or four different sets of proceedings to sort out the arrangements. Not just one proceeding, where everything can get sorted out at once.
But if they’re married, there’s the divorce, well, that’s relatively straightforward, that can be done online. It never goes to court; it doesn’t have to, well, it never goes to a hearing. That’s quite simple.
Then there’s the arrangements for the children, that’s a set of proceedings. Then there’s the arrangements for the property and finance, another set of proceedings. And then there’s any protection that might be needed against abuse or harassment […] another set of proceedings. And then there’s child support, which is organised through the child support agency, which is separate. But in a court, there could be four separate sets of proceedings. So that’s four application forms, four respondents, four sets of witness statements […] and so on.
And I think that’s completely unnecessary in most cases. And also the efforts that the court makes to get people to agree things that are separate and done separately. So that’s not how everyday life is. Most people, if they’re separating, all three of those things are going to be in their minds.”
There are some highly complex layers and factors at play here, including cuts to legal aid. But with everything combined, consequences are that fewer cases get sorted out privately between parties with the help of lawyers:
“…more cases are therefore going to court and therefore taking up court time. And money. And also in a situation where possibly one of the parties can afford a lawyer, and the other party can’t. And that makes for all sorts of difficulties.”
Returning to a service mindset: the ability to zoom out and reframe the problem space with a clear understanding of broader service and policy contexts – the interview goes on to explore the question of what a better system would look like with the concept of a “single form.”
Lady Hale explains that:
“It would have a single application form, a single set of witness statements. It would then have some quite serious triage from the court to say, well, what can be sorted out and what needs to go further and get more information if there has to be a trial? And a single way of trying to sort everything out together.”
This work will be hard to achieve in practice. But it demonstrates the right service mindset, reframing the work needed for simplifying a complex system back to how people understand and navigate their own family situations in difficult circumstances.
Maybe most importantly, this shows the need to move beyond “for reasons which are historical” to systems that can evolve to deliver better outcomes for families. And in doing so, creating a more sustainable and affordable system for everyone involved.
This is my blog where I’ve been writing for 20 years. You can follow all of my posts by subscribing to this RSS feed. You can also find me on Bluesky and LinkedIn.