Con_24070 Reducing Court Delays Delivery Partner FTS

Tender description

DfE is seeking a Delivery Partner to deliver a new pilot from January 2024 to March 2025 aimed at reducing delays in the family justice (FJ) system by working with Local Authorities (LAs) in Designated Family Judge (DFJ) areas to develop and implement solutions to tackle the root causes of delay. The FJ system is one of the most complex and cross-system policy areas in children’s services. DfE holds responsibility for public law, covering all vulnerable children in England who require LA intervention. 2.3. Unacceptable delays in the family courts have been a long-standing issue for over 10 years. In 2011, the average case duration (for cases when a social worker (SW) determines that a child is at significant risk, so applies for an order) was c55 weeks, with some cases taking more than two years to conclude. This results in poorer outcomes for children and huge additional costs to LAs and the taxpayer. The estimated costs of the FJ system is £1.2bn , which equates to over 10% of all direct expenditure on the children’s social care (CSC) system (2019/20) . Lot 1: To achieve a whole system approach, and mitigate individual agencies working in silos, a Delivery Partner to deliver a new pilot from January 2024 to March 2025 aimed at reducing de-lays in the family justice (FJ) system by working with Local Authorities (LAs) in Designated Family Judge (DFJ) areas to develop and implement solutions to tackle the root causes of de-lay. There has been an increase in issues resolution hearings (IRH), case management hearings (CMH) and further CMHs since 2017. Within the trailblazer pilot, we are specifically trying to reduce further case management hearings – additional hearings that are over and above the Public Law Outline (PLO) that create delays. The pilot has the key aim to reduce delay in the number of hearings per case, as well as di-vert more cases from court; therefore, reducing costs across the FJ system and improving children’s outcomes. Research suggests that at a conservative estimate, a one-week reduction in average proceedings duration, which in turn would reduce costs associated with placements, legal costs, staffing and external assessments, could result in a financial benefit of £18.5 million across all English LAs’ children’s services budgets. The monetised benefits come from: • Resolving a case outside of court, saving £57,629 per case. • Reducing the length of proceedings, with a marginal cost of £1,146 per week. • Reducing the number of further CMHs required, saving an estimated £3,589 per hearing. • Reducing expert reports requested and produced. An expert report costs £844 on aver-age . The pilot will be rolled out in five DFJ areas with an average demand of 1,825 cases per year. We estimate at least a 5% reduction in demand and that proceedings will be shortened by three weeks because of the pilot, resulting in total gross benefits of c£10.7m.