We are proud to celebrate the 40th Birthday of the Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law, formerly the Journal of Social Welfare Law, established by Lady Hale and Margaret Hayward in 1977 to publish information and analysis concerning family and welfare issues at a time when this area of policy and scholarship was under pressure. The journal has played a key part in informing and stimulating the development of a holistic approach to the supportive regulation of family functioning over the years, and during the recent period of austerity has again played an important part in keeping the connection between family and welfare policy and implementation. We were delighted when Routledge chose our special issue on the impending legal aid reforms 35(1) March 2013 for their first publication of a journal issue as a hardback book with the aim of making it more accessible and long lasting.Footnote1We have been proud to include not only the work of established scholars but also of those at the beginning of their careers. And we have begun to look more often to international work where there are common concerns or ideas which may be new to us but of value in stimulating debate.
This issue presents excellent examples of this approach. We begin with Mark Simpson’s timely discussion of judicial review of social security policy and practice concerning the benefit cap and the restriction of bereavement benefit to bereaved spouses and civil partners. We then turn to a contribution from Finland in which Hannele Forsberg’s discussion of the concept of residence in child arrangements after separation looks at the content of the welfare reports prepared and raises the issue of the importance of various physical factors in the proposed residence. We have spent a great deal of energy in this jurisdiction considering shared parenting, but we have may also benefit from thinking more about the importance of the physical character of the ‘home’ to small children with parents who live apart.
The next two papers concern mental health issues. Judy Laing takes us to a consideration of the concept of the Nearest Relative introduced to moderate professional discretion in the Mental Health Act of 1983, but as yet lacking close examination of how it works in practice. This is followed by Rob George and colleagues raising the issue of the level of knowledge and experience of autism in the family justice system, drawing on their survey and interviews with professionals . They found a high level of knowledge but low levels of confidence in how to use this knowledge, but are able to offer guidance on ways of ameliorating the difficulties experienced by people with autism in the court setting. They suggest the importance of providing clear information about the timing of a hearing, and paying attention to the sensory environment which could be most helpful.
Finally, we return to the close links between social policy issues and legal response in the discussion by David Barrett of the lessons to be learned from the English pupil premium system in implementing the socio-economic public sector equality duty in Scotland.
Our cases section as always covers a range of recent issues, with a particularly apposite comment on the Unison judgement in the Supreme Court from John Eekelaar . Our European section includes a contribution from Jule Mulder on recognition of same sex couples in the EU.
We end with a review of ‘Rewriting Children’s Rights Judgments: From Academic Vision to New Practice’ edited by Helen Stalford and colleagues which we are particularly pleased to include in this issue as underlining our appreciation of Helen’s contribution not only through her scholarship but also her work as joint editor of the journal for the last 9 years. We shall miss her, but are delighted that she will remain on our Editorial Committee, and Emma Hitchings is warmly welcomed as the incoming Joint Editor in the next issue.
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Notes
1. Delivering Family Justice in Late Modern Society in the wake of Legal Aid Reform , edited by Mavis Maclean, Routledge 2017.