by The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs
The Baroness Ashton of Upholland
I am today announcing the outcome of the recent consultation on Civil and Family Court Fee Increases. The Consultation Paper was published on 23 September and the consultation closed on 18 November. Some fifty responses were received from the judiciary, legal profession and other stakeholder bodies.
After careful consideration of these, my Right Honourable and Noble Friend, the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor has, with two exceptions, decided to proceed with all the fee increases proposed. Three Statutory Instruments containing the new civil, family and magistrates' court fees were laid before the House on the 20th December 2005 and will take effect today. A report analysing the responses to consultation in detail will be published shortly.
The Lord Chancellor has decided not to introduce at this stage the proposed increase from £210 to £380 of the fee for an application for ancillary relief. Consultees expressed particularly strong concerns about the size and timing of this proposal. There were also concerns that a detrimental impact on access to justice in this context could also harm any children of the family. It will be necessary to look again at this fee following the planned review of the system of exemptions and remissions.
The Lord Chancellor has also decided not to pursue the proposed increases to the fees for issuing lower value monetary claims. Some consultees were concerned that these fees were disproportionately high relative to the amount claimed. These increases would also run counter to our longer-term strategy of achieving a better match between income and cost within the system.
The increases will raise about £10.6m additional income in the current financial year, £43m in a full year. They are necessary to ensure that Her Majesty's Courts Service can balance its budget and meet its cost recovery targets for this and future years. As the Consultation Paper made clear, the need to raise this income and the underlying fees policy were not in question; the issue was whether the particular package of increases proposed was most apt to meet the need.
A key objective of that package, with which the majority of those who commented agreed in principle, was to harmonise the fees, which shall enable more effective allocation of cases to the lowest appropriate level of judiciary. This in turn will benefit court users by enabling many cases to be dealt with more quickly.
The Government's policy remains that court fees should generally be set to reflect (on average) the cost of the service provided. Where they can afford to do so, it is right that litigants using the civil courts, rather than the taxpayer, should meet the cost. This ensures that the taxpayers' contribution to the cost of the civil and family courts is focussed on funding the cost of the system of fee exemptions and remissions, in order to ensure that less well-off citizens are not denied access to justice. Setting fees generally at levels lower than the full cost would mean that corporations and other wealthy litigants would benefit from taxpayers contribution - increasing cost and putting pressures on other budgets like legal aid.
The current increases form part of our longer term strategy for court fees. Its objectives are to ensure that the system:
This year, we plan to undertake two major reviews as the next steps in delivering this strategy.
The first will be a fundamental review of the system of exemptions and remissions to ensure that it adequately protects access to justice and is operated consistently. This review will be overseen by a steering group of stakeholders, including representatives of the Civil and Family Justice Councils, which I will chair.
The second will review the structure of the system, that is the points
at which fees are charged. The key objective will be to achieve a closer
match of income and cost drivers, in particular through the introduction
of trial fees. This is necessary both to make the system fairer as between
different types of litigant, and make it easier to ensure that cost and
funding remain in balance as workload changes. This review will also consider
the various specific suggestions for changing the fee structure raised
by respondents to consultation.
A summary and guide to the fee changes is available on Her Majesty's Courts Service website