Civil news: outcomes of family mediation tender 2015 available
Outcomes from the recent mediation tender process published online.
You can now download the outcomes of the family mediation tender process.
‘Family mediation tender 2015 outcomes’ can be found on the Family mediation tender 2015 page – see below.
Family mediation taskforce
Recommendations for increasing participation in family mediation were recently published by the Family Mediation Taskforce. These included proposals that the Legal Aid Agency (LAA) should:
- fund the first mediation session in all cases where one of the people involved is already legally aided
- review its future contracts with mediation services to enhance overall service quality
The government has accepted these recommendations and the LAA and MoJ are working on a long-term tendering approach. See below for a link to the full report.
In the meantime, the LAA has:
- extended existing mediation contracts by 12 months to 31 October 2016
- approved expressions of interest from a number of existing providers for new outreach locations
- completed a tender process giving new organisations the opportunity to provide publicly funded family mediation services while the long-term tender approach is developed
The most recent tender has provided an additional 37 new organisations delivering mediation from 168 locations.
There are now 276 organisations providing legal aid mediation from 2031 locations throughout England and Wales.