Transparency in the Family Court refers to the rules that govern who may attend family hearings in England and Wales, what may be reported about them, and how judgments are published. Family hearings are held in private under rule 27.10 of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, and publication of information about children cases is restricted by section 12 of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 and section 97 of the Children Act 1989.[1][2][3] Since 27 April 2009 accredited journalists, and more recently authorised legal bloggers, have been able to attend most hearings, but until recently they could report almost nothing of what they heard.[4][1][5]
That changed with the open reporting provisions. Following the President of the Family Division’s transparency review of October 2021, a reporting pilot began in Leeds, Cardiff and Carlisle in January 2023 and, from 27 January 2025, the provisions were extended to every family court in England and Wales, in what Sir Andrew McFarlane described as “a watershed moment for family justice”.[6][7][8] Under Practice Direction 12R the court makes a transparency order allowing journalists and legal bloggers to report what they see and hear, provided that the children and their families are not identified.[9] The provisions reached private law cases on 1 May 2025 and lay justices on 29 September 2025.[10]
Definition and purpose
“Transparency” in family justice is the shorthand used by the judiciary, government and commentators for a set of connected questions: whether the public and press can attend hearings, whether they can report them, whether parties can speak about their own cases, whether judgments are published, and whether data about the system is collected and released. The tension is between two public interests: open justice, which allows the public to see and scrutinise how courts exercise their powers, and the privacy of children and families whose most personal circumstances are examined in those courts.[6]
The President’s 2021 review framed the question as one of confidence: the family justice system could not maintain public confidence while its work remained largely invisible, but nor could it protect children if their identities were exposed.[6] The resulting model, now embodied in Practice Direction 12R, permits reporting of process, reasoning and outcome while prohibiting publication of anything that would identify the child.[9]
Legal basis: the privacy rules
Two statutes restrict publication. Section 12(1) of the Administration of Justice Act 1960 makes it a contempt of court to publish information relating to proceedings before any court sitting in private where the proceedings “relate to the exercise of the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court with respect to minors”, “are brought under the Children Act 1989 or the Adoption and Children Act 2002”, or “otherwise relate wholly or mainly to the maintenance or upbringing of a minor”.[2] Section 97(2) of the Children Act 1989 provides that “No person shall publish to the public at large or any section of the public any material which is intended, or likely, to identify any child as being involved in any proceedings before the High Court or the family court”; breach is a summary offence punishable by a fine.[3]
The two provisions work differently. Section 12 protects the information in the proceedings and continues after the case has ended, but it does not of itself prevent publication of the fact that proceedings took place or of an order made in them: section 12(2) provides that publishing “the text or a summary of the whole or part of an order made by a court sitting in private shall not of itself be contempt” unless the court expressly prohibits it.[2] Section 97 protects the identity of the child, but section 97(4) allows the court to dispense with it where “the welfare of the child requires it”.[3] Section 12(4) also makes clear that publication authorised by rules of court is not a contempt, which is the mechanism by which the Family Procedure Rules and Practice Direction 12R permit reporting.[2][9]
Financial remedy proceedings on divorce are not children proceedings, so section 12 does not usually apply to them, but they are heard in private under rule 27.10 and reporting of them has developed separately, as described below.[1]
Who may attend a family hearing
Rule 27.10 provides that proceedings to which the Rules apply “will be held in private, except where these rules or any other enactment provide otherwise”.[1] Rule 27.11 lists who may be present at a private hearing: court officers, the parties, their legal representatives and litigation friends, witnesses, “duly accredited representatives of news gathering and reporting organisations”, and “a duly authorised lawyer attending for journalistic, research or public legal educational purposes”, the category commonly called legal bloggers.[1] Practice Direction 27B treats a UK Press Card as sufficient accreditation and makes clear that attendance does not entitle a reporter to see court documents without permission.[4] The court may exclude journalists and legal bloggers where satisfied that this is necessary “in the interests of any child concerned in, or connected with, the proceedings”, “for the safety or protection of a party, a witness in the proceedings, or a person connected with such a party or witness”, or for the orderly conduct of the proceedings, or where justice would otherwise be impeded or prejudiced.[1]
The judiciary summarises the position: hearings are held “in private but the press and legal bloggers may attend a hearing”, and before the open reporting provisions they could not report what they heard without the court’s permission.[5] The general public, including friends and relatives of the parties, have no right to attend, though the court may permit a McKenzie Friend or other supporter to be present.[1]
The open reporting provisions
The open reporting provisions allow accredited journalists and legal bloggers who attend a family hearing to report on it under a transparency order, which the court will normally make, subject to anonymity for the children and their family.[7][9] They were piloted from January 2023 in Leeds, Cardiff and Carlisle, extended on 29 January 2024 to sixteen further courts making 19 areas in all, and extended to every family court in England and Wales from 27 January 2025, in stages: public law and financial remedy cases first, private law children cases from 1 May 2025 and cases before lay justices from 29 September 2025.[7][11][8][10]
The legal instruments are Practice Direction 12R, for proceedings under Part 12 of the Family Procedure Rules (public law, private law, inherent jurisdiction and Hague Convention cases), and Practice Direction 14G for adoption and placement proceedings under Part 14.[9][7] Practice Direction 12R came into force on 27 January 2025 and applies where an accredited reporter or legal blogger attends a hearing.[9] The judiciary’s guidance states that the purpose is to allow reporters “to report on what they see and hear in court” while protecting “the child’s privacy and anonymity”.[7]
The pilot was designed by Mrs Justice Lieven and District Judge Harrison under the Transparency Implementation Group, and was independently evaluated by the National Centre for Social Research, which reported in July 2024.[7][12] Announcing the national extension, Sir Andrew McFarlane said: “The establishment of the open reporting provisions in all family courts in England and Wales is a watershed moment for family justice.”[8] In April 2025 he noted that there had been no reported breach of any transparency order and remarked that “It is chastening to consider that the pilot only started in the first adopter courts in January 2023.”[10]
Transparency orders
A transparency order is an order of the court that specifies “what information from court proceedings may be communicated” and “who may communicate that information”, and which removes the risk of contempt for reporting that complies with it.[9] Under Practice Direction 12R the court will consider making one whenever a reporter attends, and the standard order permits reporting of the proceedings while prohibiting publication of the names, dates of birth and addresses of the children, the identities of their parents and other family members, foster parents, schools, hospitals and treating clinicians, photographs, and details of any alleged sexual abuse.[9] The restrictions usually last “until every child to whom the proceedings relate reaches the age of 18”.[9]
| Element | Standard position under Practice Direction 12R |
|---|---|
| Who may report | Accredited journalists and duly authorised lawyers attending for journalistic, research or public legal educational purposes[9][1] |
| What may be reported | What the reporter sees and hears in court, including the issues, the evidence in general terms, the parties’ positions and the court’s decision and reasons[9][7] |
| What may not be reported | Names, dates of birth and addresses of children; identities of parents, family members and foster parents; schools, hospitals and named clinicians; photographs; details of alleged sexual abuse[9] |
| Documents | Reporters may be given case outlines, summaries, position statements and skeleton arguments, threshold documents, chronologies and bundle indices, but may not publish them[9] |
| Duration | Until every child to whom the proceedings relate reaches 18, unless the court orders otherwise[9] |
| Variation | The court may vary the standard terms in an individual case, more or less restrictively, and either party or a reporter may apply[9][13] |
| Breach | Publication outside the order remains a contempt under section 12 of the 1960 Act and may be an offence under section 97 of the 1989 Act[2][3] |
Practice Direction 12R also addresses the interests of the parties: the court must consider any objection, and the judge retains a discretion to refuse or restrict reporting where the risk to a child or party outweighs the public interest.[9] Paragraphs 7.1 to 7.13 set out the matters the court considers, including the risk of jigsaw identification, in which several individually harmless details together identify a child.[9]
Financial remedy cases
Reporting of financial remedy proceedings developed on a separate track. A Financial Remedies Court reporting pilot was announced on 15 December 2023 and began on 29 January 2024 at the Central Family Court, Birmingham and Leeds, allowing journalists and legal bloggers to attend and report under a transparency order that prohibits publishing “The names and addresses of the parties (including any intervenors) and their children”, while providing that cause lists “will name the parties and state that the proceedings involve financial remedies”.[14][15] Financial dispute resolution appointments, which are without-prejudice negotiation hearings, are excluded.[15] The pilot was extended to the Royal Courts of Justice from 11 November 2024, and a notice of 11 December 2024 stated that it would apply to “financial remedy proceedings taking place in all courts” from 29 January 2025 and would run to 29 January 2026.[16][17] Financial remedy cases were among the first to which the national open reporting provisions applied from 27 January 2025.[10] See financial remedy proceedings.
Publication of judgments
The second strand of transparency is the publication of anonymised judgments. The 2021 review recommended that judges publish around 10 per cent of their judgments each year in anonymised form, that detailed accounts of abuse be removed from published versions, and that an anonymisation unit be created within HMCTS to reduce the burden on judges.[6] Published family judgments appear on Find Case Law, the National Archives’ service, and the Transparency Implementation Group has a sub-group on anonymisation and publication of judgments.[18] The review also recommended better data collection and clearer listing so that reporters can identify cases of public interest; a listing code system was introduced during the pilot after journalists reported difficulty interpreting court lists.[6][12]
Parties, social media and the public
The open reporting provisions apply to accredited reporters and legal bloggers, not to the parties themselves. A parent remains bound by section 12 of the 1960 Act and section 97 of the 1989 Act, and may not publish information from the proceedings, on social media or elsewhere, unless the court permits it; the standard transparency order does not lift that restriction.[2][3][13] Parties may, however, speak to a journalist or legal blogger for the purpose of a report made under a transparency order, and may seek the court’s permission to communicate information in other ways under the rules in Part 12 Chapter 7.[9] Commentators have noted that this leaves parents who wish to tell their own story dependent on a High Court application or on the interest of a reporter.[13]
Section 12 does not prevent a party from discussing their case with a lawyer, a McKenzie Friend, Cafcass or a health professional, and the Family Procedure Rules contain a table of permitted communications for those purposes.[9][2] Guidance for parents on what the provisions mean is published by the judiciary alongside the standard transparency order.[7]
Statistics and evaluation
The National Centre for Social Research evaluated the pilot in its first three courts and reported on 1 July 2024. It found no evidence of any significant jigsaw identification of a child, that media interest was high at launch and then declined, that court staff, professionals and media broadly supported the scheme, and that the main practical barriers were journalists’ difficulty in reading court lists and deciding which hearings to attend.[12] It recorded that even sceptical participants viewed “the ability to report on the functioning of family courts” as an inevitability.[12] The President reported in April 2025 that no breach of a transparency order had been reported since the pilot began.[10]
No official series yet counts transparency orders or reports. For scale, the family courts started 71,259 cases in January to March 2026, of which 15,534 were private law and 4,160 public law children cases; the number of hearings attended by reporters is a very small fraction of these.[19][12]
History
| Date | Development |
|---|---|
| 1960 | Administration of Justice Act 1960, s.12, made publication of information about private children proceedings a contempt[2] |
| 14 October 1991 | Children Act 1989 in force, including s.97 prohibiting identification of children in proceedings[3] |
| 27 April 2009 | Accredited media representatives permitted to attend most family hearings under what is now FPR rule 27.11 and Practice Direction 27B[4][1] |
| 2018 to 2021 | Legal bloggers pilot under Practice Direction 36J, later made permanent, adding duly authorised lawyers to rule 27.11[6][1] |
| 28 October 2021 | President’s transparency review, Confidence and Confidentiality, published; Transparency Implementation Group established[6][18] |
| January 2023 | Reporting pilot began in Leeds, Cardiff and Carlisle[7][8] |
| 15 December 2023 | Financial Remedies Court reporting pilot announced[14] |
| 29 January 2024 | Reporting pilot extended to 16 more courts (19 areas); financial remedies pilot began at the Central Family Court, Birmingham and Leeds[11][14] |
| 1 July 2024 | NatCen evaluation of the pilot published[12] |
| 4 November 2024 | Magistrates’ courts pilot extended to public and private law in all 19 areas[16] |
| 27 January 2025 | Open reporting provisions extended to all family courts; Practice Directions 12R and 14G in force[8][9] |
| 1 May 2025 | Provisions extended to private law children cases[10] |
| 29 September 2025 | Provisions extended to cases heard by lay justices[10] |
| 14 May 2026 | Sir Stephen Cobb sworn in as President of the Family Division, inheriting oversight of the Transparency Implementation Group[20] |
Criticism and debate
Supporters of greater openness, including The Transparency Project, a registered charity that runs the Family Court Reporting Watch, have argued for many years that private hearings allowed error and poor practice to go unexamined and that inaccurate media reporting flourished in the absence of verifiable information; the Reporting Watch corrects, clarifies and comments on media reports of family cases and on published judgments.[21] Critics of the reforms have warned of jigsaw identification, of the effect on children of knowing that a reporter was present, and of the burden on judges and court staff of drafting and policing orders.[12][6]
Since the national extension the debate has moved to the detail. Lucy Reed KC, chair of The Transparency Project, has criticised confusion among judges about their power to vary the standard order, the lack of readily available templates for varied orders, and the fact that the standard order allows only media reporting and not parents telling their own stories, arguing that a “Transparency Order is not a straightjacket, it is just a tool, and it needs to be tailored to fit”.[13] The financial remedies pilot has raised a distinct question about naming parties in cause lists and the anonymisation of wealthy litigants.[14] The NatCen evaluation found that concerns among professionals about transparency’s implications persisted alongside broad support, and recommended further training for reporters.[12]
See also
- The Family Court
- Financial remedy proceedings – the financial remedies reporting pilot
- Fact-finding hearing
- Final hearing
- Litigant in person
- Domestic abuse and family law
References
- Family Procedure Rules 2010, Part 27: Hearings and directions appointments (rules 27.10 and 27.11). Ministry of Justice. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Administration of Justice Act 1960, section 12: Publication of information relating to proceedings in private. legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Children Act 1989, section 97: Privacy for children involved in certain proceedings. legislation.gov.uk. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Practice Direction 27B: Attendance of media representatives at hearings in family proceedings. Ministry of Justice. In effect from 27 April 2009. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Family Division and Family Court. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Confidence and Confidentiality: Transparency in the Family Courts. Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division. 28 October 2021. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Open Reporting Provisions. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. updated 21 February 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Open reporting provisions extended to all family courts in watershed moment for family justice. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 27 January 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Practice Direction 12R: The court giving permission to communicate information from proceedings to which Part 12 FPR applies. Ministry of Justice. In force 27 January 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- A View from the President’s Chambers: April 2025. Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division. April 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Groundbreaking Family Court reporting pilot rolled out to 16 more courts across England. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 12 January 2024. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Evaluation of the Family Court Reporting Pilot and transparency in the family courts. National Centre for Social Research. 1 July 2024. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Transparency Orders: tool or straight jacket?. Lucy Reed KC, The Transparency Project. 10 April 2025. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Reporting pilot for Financial Remedies Court proceedings announced. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 15 December 2023. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- The Transparency Reporting Pilot for Financial Remedy Proceedings: guidance from the President of the Family Division. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. December 2023. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Extensions to family court transparency pilots. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 30 October 2024. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Financial Remedies transparency pilot notice. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 11 December 2024. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Transparency Implementation Group. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Family Court Statistics Quarterly, January to March 2026. Ministry of Justice. 25 June 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Lord Justice Cobb sworn in as President of the Family Division. Courts and Tribunals Judiciary. 14 May 2026. Accessed 5 September 2026.
- Family Court Reporting Watch. The Transparency Project (registered charity 1161471). Accessed 5 September 2026.
External links
This article is part of Family Court Wiki, published by Family Legal Ltd. It is general information about the law of England and Wales, not legal advice. Last reviewed 6 September 2026. About this site and editorial policy · Report an error.