A government initiative dubbed “Pathfinder” to reduce the backlog in family court proceedings and provide more support for domestic abuse victims has been hailed as a success. Since its inception in 2022, the pilot scheme has significantly reduced the time cases take to be resolved, while the number of cases with unused entries has halved. As a result, the Welsh government has decided to extend the scheme to cover all Welsh family courts, with West Yorkshire chosen as the area in England where Pathfinder will also be deployed.
Family court proceedings often trigger bitter disputes between separating parents, which can lead to further trauma for victims of domestic abuse and detrimentally affect their children. The original review that supplied the reasoning for the scheme flagged up these issues in 2020, so the aim of Pathfinder was to provide a swifter resolution to cases and to take the opinions of children into account at an earlier stage of the process.
Parents who are unable to agree how custody responsibilities will be shared have to appear before family court, where the verdict can have a considerable impact on their lives. Judges are responsible for determining which parent the children will live with, where they go to school as well as any additional issues, such as vacation arrangements.
In Wales, Pathfinder was launched in select courts, such as north Wales and South East Wales, in 2022 and extended to Birmingham earlier this year. The plan has proven incredibly successful, with the average case completion time cut from 29 weeks to just 18 weeks in north Wales. From March 2025, Wales will become the very first country in the world to use the Pathfinder Pilot for all private child proceedings. In contrast, West Yorkshire will receive the scheme later next month in June
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