Lead judge for Family Drug and Alcohol Courts calls for expansion

The lead judge for the Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs), Lord Justice Peter Jackson, has called for their expansion, suggesting that it must move to the point where it is “not a sign of merit to have an FDAC, but an embarrassment not to have one”.

In a speech to the Family Drug and Alcohol Court Judges Conference last week (22 November), Peter Jackson LJ noted that in FDAC proceedings, 52% of children are returned to their parents, compared to 13% in standard care proceedings.

He observed that parents are four times more likely to abstain, “with benefits for the family and savings for the health service and criminal justice system”.

FDACs are a problem-solving, court-driven approach to care proceedings, designed to work with parents who struggle with drug and alcohol use.

Addressing the conference after a year as lead FDAC judge, Lord Peter Jackson set out the reasons for his belief in the approach. These include that:

• It is a responsible use of public resources – “It cannot be said often enough, every FDAC case saves the public an average of £58,000 in state care costs, and £15,000 in legal costs. The latter is because there are hardly any external experts (1 per 13 cases against 1 per case), half the number of legal hearings, and only 4% of final hearings are contested (as against 24%). That is not just a financial saving, but it frees up court time to deal with other work and reduces delays.”
• It complies more fully with legal obligations – “As I said in a recent talk at the Association of Lawyers for Children, our courts and the European Court of Human Rights have repeatedly said that removal into public care should be regarded as a temporary measure, to be discontinued as soon as circumstances permit, with the ultimate aim of reuniting the family. FDAC therefore meets our legal obligations more fully than any other approach. […] In care proceedings, the child’s welfare and the parent’s rights are often seen as being in tension. That tension is much less apparent in FDAC, where the aim is to help the child by helping the parent.”
• It treats people respectfully – “Parents were overwhelmingly positive about their experience of FDAC, whether or not they got their children back.”
• It shows what a justice system can be like – “Judges who sit in FDAC report that it influences all their judging. If FDAC expands, I believe that its ethos can be a strong influence on practice and procedure in the family court, and beyond.”

Lastly, Peter Jackson LJ called for an expansion of FDAC – noting that the service offers “the best way of achieving real culture change” in efforts to protect children from harmful parenting, while protecting them from unnecessary separation from their families.

He said: “We must get beyond the present stop-start narrative, with individual FDACs opening and closing every year, and move to the point where it is not a sign of merit to have an FDAC but an embarrassment not to have one.”

He warned that FDAC remains “worryingly small”, and is currently only available to 2% of children in care cases. "There are many local authorities who would like an FDAC, and the judges in the family court are strongly in support."

Lottie Winson