The Gazette 1982

april

1982

g a z e t t e

"AMatter of Matrimony"

Law Society Symposium, 29 May 1982

B Y COMMON consent of those attending (solicitors and social workers, in the main) the Law Society's Symposium entitled "A Matter of Matrimony" held at Blackhall Place on 29 May 1982 was regarded as an out- standing success. The speakers were: Alan Shatter, Solicitor Dr Peter Fahy, Psychiatrist District Justice Sean Delap Mrs Kay Begg, Conciliator from the Bristol Courts Family Conciliation Service. Each of the speakers (who spoke in the above order) succeeded in interacting with and complementing each other perfectly, building up to the presentation by our cross- Channel speaker, Mrs Begg. Mrs Begg is a Conciliator with the Bristol Courts Family Conciliation Service, a widely acclaimed pioneering experiment set up some four years ago by a group of lawyers, social workers and others, who were particularly concerned about the increase in the divorce rate and the corresponding increase in the number of children involved in proceedings. Mrs Begg, in her address, pointed out that it was established as an experi- mental scheme and as the first attempt in the United King- dom to provide a conciliation scheme on the lines of those attached to Family Courts in Australia and parts of Canada and the U.S.A. Essentially, as Mrs Begg described it, the Service provided an opportunity in a neutral, informal and non-judgmental setting for separating couples to explore the possibilities of reaching agreements over matters which would otherwise, in all probability, be contested in Court. She explained that the aim of the Service was to resolve actual or incipient disputes, especially where children are involved, to promote parental co-operation and to help the couple concerned to disengage from a broken marriage with less bitterness and hostility. Mrs Begg emphasised that conciliation should not be confused with reconciliation, i.e. re-uniting an estranged couple. She said, however, that the Bristol Service did not exclude the possibility of a reconcili- ation taking place and, if the likelihood of such developed during discussions, the couple were encouraged to seek further counselling help elsewhere. Mrs Begg explained that most of the work of the Service was with couples whose marriages had broken down irre- trievably, and at the outset of the Scheme, most referrals were by the solicitors acting for the parties, although at this

time, because of the considerable publicity it has attracted, a large number of people approached the Service direct and without the intervention of a solicitor. Mrs Begg said that generally the procedure would be for a 'Conciliator' (as she was), who would be a qualified Social Worker with training in Marriage Guidance Counselling, to meet with, first, one party and then the other and then meet them together, preferably involving no more than perhaps three one-hour sessions. She described how, with the trained help of the Conciliator, a couple was helped to work out accept- able arrangements with the minimum anger, disagreement and distress, on such matters as custody of and access to the children, occupation of the family home and, in conjunc- tion with the solicitor for each party, provisions for main- tenance and the division ofproperty. Mrs Begg stressed that confidentiality was considered to be very important, as people might otherwise be inhibited by fears of prejudicial information being disclosed to a Court. She pointed out that the Bristol Service was not linked to any Court and that the Courts had no power to order conciliation and that the Service did not investigate and report to a Court or to any other agency. She said that the Service would not involve itself in conciliation unless both parties agreed. Mrs Begg described the success rate of the Service over its first four years as being extremely encouraging, in that in some 81% of cases where conciliation had taken place, agreement on the issues in dispute had been achieved. She said that the normal procedure at the conclusion of a successful conciliation was for the Conciliator concerned to write a carefully balanced non-controversial letter, sum- marising the terms of agreement, to the solicitors for both parties; the solicitors would then formalise that agreement, either in the form of an inter-parties written agreement or, more usually, in the form of a Consent Order in the context of divorce proceedings. Mrs Begg explained that the Bristol Service had become a registered charity, funded for an experimental three-year period (1979 to 1982) principally by the Nuffield Founda- tion, aided by some payments fromthe Legal Aid Fund. She said that there was no charge to the parties participating in the Service, although clients could make voluntary, con- tributions. She pointed out that at present there was an inter-departmental committee preparing a Report for pre- senting to the U.K. Parliament in October 1982, when a decision was to be made as to how this experimental Service was to continue and how it was to be funded on a permanent basis. • 113