Annual report [1997-98] - Family Court of Australia

The Family Court of Australia – annual report 1997-98
Cases seen by the Counselling Service
The Family Court Counselling Service works predominantly to help separated parents to
reach agreement about the future arrangements for their children without litigation. This
may involve reaching an agreement which they may then seek to have made into consent
orders by the Court. Often it requires helping them to overcome emotional blocks, make
significant adjustments to their changed circumstances and educate them about the needs
of their children as preliminary steps in resolving the dispute. Agreement rates vary
depending on when the parents approach the Counselling Service. Where they seek conciliation
counselling before filing an application 78% reach agreement on at least one of
the substantive issues in dispute; where ordered by the Court to attend, 67% and 66% reach
full or partial agreement depending on whether they attend before their first day in Court
or after this date respectively.
In 1997-98 the Counselling Service dealt with 25,297 cases in person and 14,086 telephone
cases, crisis calls and intake assessments. At the same time, 59,678 interviews in
person were held and 34,116 telephone interviews, crisis calls and intake interviews were
held.
Of all the cases seen in person, 93% were seen in the Counselling Service’s conciliation
counselling program. The remaining 7% of cases were those where a Family Report was
prepared. These reports were ordered in disputed cases involving children and, of those
cases, some reached agreement during and after the preparation of the report and did not
proceed to a contested hearing. In report cases, the family has usually had previous contact
with the counselling section for conciliation counselling. As the discussions that have taken
place in conciliation counselling are not admissible as evidence in Court, the report is
always prepared by a different Court counsellor.
As many as 40% of all cases seen came on a voluntary basis to use the Court’s primary dispute
resolution service. This is consistent with the Court’s encouragement that people
resolve their disputes preferably without recourse to litigation. In all, 20% were referred to
counselling by the Court after an application for a parenting order in relation to residence,
contact or specific issues was filed but prior to the matter first coming before the Court;
and a further 33% were referred by the Court after the first directions hearing.
The year saw the introduction of fees on 1 July 1997 and the later disallowance of this by
the Senate on 24 November resulting in fees being collected over a five-month period.
This, combined with the announcement by the Federal Attorney-General that he was
reviewing the delivery of dispute resolution services in family law, saw a reduction in the
number of voluntary cases seen in person by the Counselling Service over the past year
compared to the previous year (12,191 in 1996-97 compared to 10,187 in 1997-98). In contrast,
telephone services, which did not attract a fee, were not affected and were slightly up
on last year (13,809 compared with 14,086).
Overall there was an improvement in the number of registries that were able to meet the
time standard for court-ordered conciliation counselling as indicated in the ‘Performance
Indicators’section elsewhere in Part three of this Report. While some registries were not
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