The Children Arbitration Scheme is being launched in July 2016. Already 20 arbitrators have been trained and more will be trained in April with a view to cases being arbitrated as from July.
The Children Scheme will cover arbitration in respect of issues such as where the children should live, time spent with each parent, s 8 Orders, internal relocation within England and Wales. It is anticipated in due course that the Scheme may extend to cover external relocation to Hague countries.
It is predicted (and hoped) that arbitration will grow even more in popularity as the optimum choice for separating couples in the weeks and months to come and as a viable option to lengthy child proceedings in the Family Court.
What you don’t get:
The requirement of a MIAM;
All the standard preliminary steps and stages, whether or not they are appropriate to your case;
The hurdle of satisfying a judge that expert evidence is necessary;
Waiting in line till the court slots are available;
Litigants having to fit their availability to the court-provided slots;
The risk of going to court and finding your case ‘bumped’ by urgent business so that you only start your one day case at 2pm and have too little time to get through the evidence and issues;
The related problem of sitting around in inconvenient premises (that don’t promote dialogue and settlement) whilst waiting to hear if you will get on;
Having to present a case within the confines of a restrictive court bundle;
Coming on before a Judge who does not really make children issues a major part of their work or who has particular views on the application that is being brought that stands in the way of the fair hearing (great if the judicial tendency helps you, but who wants to rely on that?);
Finding that despite the best efforts of the judge to manage their over-stuffed list, you go ''part heard'' and face the wait of months (and a further round of brief fees) before the issues can advance;
The risk of the court refusing to make a determination of the issue that litigants have raised for a decision;
The risk of media attention or a reported judgment;
A significant risk of further delay, cost and uncertainty process whilst appeals are under-way.
What you do get:
A creative process that the advisors and clients help design with the arbitrator to best meet the needs of ensuring a fair hearing of the issues;
The possibility of a decision based on papers rather than the formality of a hearing (if that is what better suits the situation);
The option of selecting a decision maker: rather than going to court and having a Judge imposed on them, the parties are able to determine who they would like to hear their dispute. With a range of potential arbitrators available – retired judges, QCs, partners in law firms and junior counsel, parties have a choice and are able to bring in who is best to deal with their particular dispute;
The expert, oral and written evidence that the parties believe is needed to address the issues in the case rather than the more restricted evidence that current pressures on the court-system require be imposed;
The possibility of review hearings and trialling solutions;
Usually a real endeavour to pin down the key issues that need to be addressed: the parties have autonomy in arbitration and are able to work together to determine the best process to deal with their case. There are no ''set tracks'' but rather an ability to agree a proposed way forward;
Control and pacing: the parties are able to ask the arbitrator to deal with matters expeditiously if an urgent adjudication is required.
Alternatively, if they feel they would like to take their time in resolving their dispute that is also an available option;
Confidentiality – crucially, in a time where openness and transparency are the buzz words in the family law arena, for clients who need confidentiality, this can be assured within the context of arbitration;
Informality – the whole procedure is much less formal and many of the clients who have been through arbitration have spoken about feeling included in the process rather than the court process which can often be alienating and frightening.
At the end of the process the parties will decide whether the arbitral determination needs to be backed up by an order of the court or whether this model of privatised, expert, autonomous determination has provided the parties with the answer that they needed without further court approval.
www.familylaw.co.uk/news_and_comment/chi...verview#.VxdefDArKUl 
