Just over a quarter of a million recent divorces were postponed due to financial pressures since 2020. 17% of divorces were deferred because of money worries. Couples cited income concerns, rising living expenses and the cost of divorce. Once separated, almost half of divorcees see their incomes shrink by an Read more…
The Family Mediation Voucher Scheme is to be continued for another year. The Family Mediation Council says it has been successful in helping people make important agreements without the need to go to court. The scheme will now run until March 2026. The government supports family mediation and is working Read more…
The delays for public sector workers in getting their pension valuations are continuing. Many people cannot complete their divorce settlements because of the changes in how pension pots are valued. The government’s Money Helper website says that if you qualify for a Cash Equivalent Transfer Value (CETV), it must be Read more…
The High Court has overturned a judge’s decision to forego the financial dispute resolution (FDR) in a case where there was “an ongoing factual dispute about the wife’s earning capacity and that the wife’s position had not crystallised to enable the FDR process to be successful”. The High Court judge Read more…
60% of terminated Individual Voluntary Arrangements created by Insolvency Practitioners showed evidence of poor practice. Examples of this included inaccurate recording of income and expenditures, incorrect dismissal of other debt solutions, and providers failing to ensure that people understood what they were signing up for. Individual Voluntary Arrangements are a Read more…
Measures to protect women and girls from violence are to be improved by putting specialists in domestic abuse in 999 call centres. Last year, the police recorded 100 offences related to domestic abuse every hour. This new initiative aims to ensure that calls for help are treated urgently and that Read more…
The number of people who think smacking, hitting, slapping, or shaking a child is not acceptable has risen to 71% Last year, Childline delivered over 700 counselling sessions to children with concerns about physical punishment. Ahead of the general election, the NSPCC is asking all political parties to scrap ‘reasonable Read more…
The Office for National Statistics has published the latest family and household statistics. The highlights are: There are 19.5 million families, an increase of just over one million in ten years. One-third of young men (aged 20 to 34) live at home with their parents. But less than one in Read more…
New government figures show: 6.7 million people are on Universal Credit Three-quarters of those are from white ethnic groups The proportion of people who get their Universal Credit but are not required to work continues to increase: it’s now well over one in three.
When did you last get a pay rise? Last year? The year before? The government has not increased the fees of civil legal aid providers for twenty-eight years. Yes, that is not a typo. 28 years. The fees that legal aid providers can get from the government are the same Read more…