Expert witness fee cut could 'hinder' family court judges

From today, December 2, experts asked to give evidence in the family court as part of care proceedings will have their fee reduced by 20 per cent following cuts to the Legal Aid budget introduced by the Ministry of Justice.

The cuts will see the hourly rate paid by the court to independent social workers – who are used to give a second opinion on care cases – drop from £63 to £50.40. Meanwhile, the hourly rate for a child psychiatrist and paediatrician will fall from £135 to £108.

Expert witnesses are used by the courts to help judges establish the facts of a case and decide whether to grant care applications brought by local authorities.

Philip King, director of the Confederation of Independent Social Workers, said the fee cuts will make it harder for courts to find expert witnesses willing to give evidence.

King said: “Independent social workers provide specialist assessments in the most difficult cases.

“What will happen is that courts are not going to have the availability of independent opinion to help make decisions about cases. It will restrict the amount of opinion that judges say they need to make some of the most fundamental and far reaching decisions in children’s lives.”

Barbara Hopkin, a solicitor and spokesperson for the Association of Lawyers for Children, shares King’s concerns.

“It is already difficult to get specialists to give evidence and this cut will make it harder,” she said.

Hopkin also added that evidence from expert clinical witnesses is used in the most complex cases to assess issues such as whether to keep siblings together, the emotional impact of abuse and to establish the cause of bruises and injuries.

“There are very few experts and lots of people have stopped doing forensic work,” she said.