According to a report from the National Audit Office, the Ministry of Justice is on track to meet its main objective of significantly reducing in a short timeframe spending on civil legal aid. However, it is less clear to what extent it has met its other objectives of reducing unnecessary litigation and targeting legal aid […]

The Department for Education has announced a £19 million support fund for adoptive families. The new funding will be available to help adoptive families across the country settle their children into their new home. The Adoption Support Fund – to be rolled out nationwide from May 2015 after pilots across 10 councils – will help […]

A High Court Judge has permitted a mother to change the surname of her twin sons, following what the judge found to be ‘bizarre conduct’ on the part of the father. In Re F (Children; contact, name, parental responsibility), a long-running dispute about arrangements for the children, the court heard that the father had maintained […]

The President of the Family Division Sir James Munby has accused the government of washing its hands of the problem it has created by failing to provide legal aid for vulnerable parents in cases involving their children. In D (A Child) the parents faced having their son taken away from them by the local authority […]