This issue is dedicated to Rupert Hughes, CBE, whose contribution to the Children Act (England and Wales) 1989, as can be seen in every issue of this journal over the last 37 years, bears lasting witness to his knowledge, commitment and humanity concerning the needs of families.
Work and family, resources and needs: this issue stands squarely in the central ground of Social Welfare and Family Law with, firstly, two articles on how family law sits alongside employment and social security regulation, and, secondly, two articles on how children in non-intact families feel about the financial issues that arise in multi-household families, and how their relationship with their birth parents is decided when the welfare authorities wish to move to forced adoption.
In the first article Michelle Weldon Johns in ‘From modern workplaces to modern families –re-envisioning the work family conflict’ describes how recent family law reform considers different and emerging forms of family life, particularly cross-household families. She argues that employment and social security regulation remains focused on the dual-partnered nuclear family model. She argues forcefully for the law to not only recognise different forms of family life, drawing on Swedish and US examples, but to also focus on caring relationships and to accept the concept of the worker, including the grandparent, as having work and caring responsibilities. Olivia Smith takes up the work/life balance issue in the case of older women in Ireland who, despite the assurance of equality in the Irish Constitution, remain invisible in policy terms as ‘indirect citizens’. They are still excluded from the pension arrangements promised by the Homemakers Scheme of 1994, which recognises gender inequality but covers only those taking breaks from the labour market for caring responsibilities since 1994.
In the second two articles addressing children issues, Monica Campo, Belinda Fehlberg and Christine Millward from Australia present data from interviews with 22 children in separated families who were asked about their feelings regarding the financial arrangements that their parents had made. The title reflects the central message received from the children: ‘I think it’s okay. I'm not going to say it’s unfair.’ The article makes a significant contribution to an area where little research has been carried out, perhaps because of the difficulty of interviewing children involved in conflict between parents without risking causing further harm. This study was able to develop as part of a wider research project working with separated couples and although the children were reluctant to comment on their own parents’ decisions they did convey a perception of money as functioning as a surrogate for love. Some spoke of uncomplaining mothers and smart fathers but there was little knowledge about how much money was transferred, how much was needed or even which parent was meeting which expenses, although some felt that mum paid more.
The final article from Brian Sloan of Robinson College, Cambridge, provides an authoritative account of the direction being taken by senior judiciary on adoption decisions in England and Wales, and indicates divergence from the direction of government policy making. Following the case of Re B (A Child) (Care Proceedings: Appeal) [2013] UKSC 33, the author asks whether the view of adoption as the remedy of last resort is one based on substance or rhetoric. He suggests that the line taken by senior members of the judiciary in cases dealing with local authority requests for full care orders with a view to adoption is clearly moving towards greater rigour in accepting such requests. Although allowing a parent to oppose such a decision remains limited to cases where a change in circumstances can be shown there is, nevertheless, concern amongst senior judges about the adequacy of welfare evidence and the need to take a holistic view to avoid making a more draconian decision than is perhaps appropriate. While the judiciary moves towards the kind of rigour envisaged by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), government appears to be moving in the opposite direction towards speed (and cost-saving) in decision-making.
The issue also includes a review of Andrew Commins on Spousal Maintenance by Peter Harris, and Emma Hitching's review of Lisa Parkinson's latest edition of Family Mediation. The cases discussed include John Eekelaar on Litigants in Person, Claire Fenton Glynn on the benefits cap, Alma Heenan on Spousal Maintenance and Jed Meers on vulnerability under s. 189 of the 1996 Housing Act. In the European section Egle Dagilyte and Margaret Greeenfields look at the position of the Roma in the UK following the benefit reforms.