The number of mediation ‘starts’ increased by a third in the three months to June, the government has announced.
In a new bulletin on legal aid statistics for the second quarter of 2015, the Ministry of Justice reports a 33 per cent increase in the number of times families at loggerheads began mediation, when compared to the same period last year. Initial mediation assessments, meanwhile, remain relatively stable at around half the number of those held before the introduction of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act, commonly known by its acronym LASPO.
The greater increase in the number of mediation starts when compared to assessments suggests, says the Ministry, that “a larger proportion of assessments are leading to starts now than before LASPO.”
Meanwhile, close to two thirds (64 percent) of completed mediations resulted in a successful outcome, the report claims. Those involving children were the most successful, with 67 per cent reaching agreement.
Read the bulletin in full here.
