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JOURNAL OF SOCIAL WELFARE AND FAMILY LAW, 2016 RoutledAe
VOL.38, NO.1,1-2
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09649069.2016.1145832 Taylor & Francis Group
Editorial Issue 38(1)
We are delighted to present the first issue of 2016. The picture in 2015 was bleak for social welfare
and family law, as welfare and legal aid reform took a firm hold. Bruising cuts in legal aid have
created a cavernous 'redress gap' for those unable to pay for advice and placed unsustainable
pressure on frontline, not-for-profit advice providers (Low Commission, 2015). Benefits cuts
coupled with tax increases have resulted in an unprecedented rise in evictions (Ministry of
Justice, 2015) and in the number of individuals resorting to foodbanks (Trussell Trust, 2015).
The withdrawal of universal credit to European Economic Area (EEA) nationals and their family
members from June 2015 has further diminished migration incentives (Universal Credit (EEA
Jobseekers) Amendment Regulations 2015, SI. No.546/2015). Such measures have incontro-
vertibly affected single parents, children, the disabled and minority ethnic communities in
particular, prompting the United Nations (UN) Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural
Rights (CESCR) to launch an investigation into the fairness and proportionality of the welfare
cuts vis-a-vis society's most vulnerable (CESCR, 2015).
Notwithstanding the ongoing threats to family justice redress and social welfare entitlement,
we enter 2016 with a marginal degree of optimism: we are told that the economy is on the up;
the latest set of Government proposals to reduce tax credits for those on low pay have been
successfully blocked by the Upper House, at least pending a detailed impact assessment; new,
creative and technically resourceful ways of offering social welfare and family law support to
individuals continue to be developed; and the courts have managed, for the most part, to main-
tain robust human rights standards in the face of austerity (Clarke v LB Sutton [2015] EWHC
1081 (Admin); Nzolameso v Westminster City Council [2015] UKSC 22; R (AM)v LB of Tower
Hamlets and Havering [2015] EWHC 1004 (Admin).
Further critical reviews of these developments will feature in this journal over the coming
year. This issue begins with one such critique by Holt and Kelly who focus on the impact of
changes to the family justice process. Specifically, they consider the effects of the 26-week dead-
line for the completion of care cases and the introduction of new pre-proceedings protocols
to divert families to alternative forms of dispute resolution, all ostensibly aimed at reducing
delay and achieving the best outcomes for children. The authors present some revealing and
somewhat jaded responses from practitioners to these new changes, drawing on the findings
of longitudinal research involving three local authorities engaged in pre-proceedings practice
between 2009 and 2014.
Morris, Morris and Sigafoos explore the scope and challenges associated with accommodating
'carefully circumscribed exceptions' under the Equality Act 2010, with particular reference to the
requirements of Charity law. The authors illustrate the difficulties of interpreting and applying
the exceptions by reference to cases involving discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation in
the name of religious belief (notably the Catholic adoption cases). More generally, they consider
how a modern equality framework should and can manage the competing demands of different
protected characteristics and how this creates tensions within charity law to which such religious
organisations are also subject.
In her reflections on the values underpinning modern-day marriage, Elizabeth Van
Acker questions the clarity, relevance and authenticity of the specific values of morality, equal-
ity, family stability and public order that the UK Government ascribes to marriage. She asserts
© 2016 Taylor & Francis](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/jnlosclwl38&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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