Reducing Delays in Care Proceedings: Lessons from the Trailblazer Pilot Programme on Creating System Governance

Following the success of the DFJ Trailblazer programme and subsequent Guided Learning programme, Mutual Ventures has been commissioned by the Department for Education to support all DFJ areas across England to take part in the National Learning Support programme.

In a series of articles, Luke Bevir provides an overview of the previous DFJ Area Trailblazer Pilot, the five pilot areas’ journeys to share learning that will be relevant for other DFJ Areas beginning to develop their own solutions to challenges as part of the Guided Learning Programme.This first article looks at the pilot areas’ work to develop and improve system governance.

The Family Justice System is complex. Delays in proceedings are a persistent issue that affects outcomes for children and families. These delays can leave children waiting for stability and safety, and place additional strain on families and professionals.

The Designated Family Judge Area (DFJ) Trailblazers Pilot Programme aimed to reduce case delays in the Family Justice System by supporting local authorities within five DFJ areas to identify local drivers of delay, and design and implement solutions that improve efficiency and effectiveness in handling public law care proceedings. The pilot brought together local authorities, the judiciary, Cafcass and other partners across five DFJ Areas (‘Trailblazers’) in England to co-design and test locally tailored solutions.

The five Trailblazers were:

• Central London

• Cheshire and Merseyside

• Essex, Suffolk, Southend-On-Sea and Thurrock

• Guildford

• Wolverhampton

After identifying the key challenges faced by each pilot area, our team at Mutual Ventures supported the Trailblazers to develop solutions to address these shared challenges, cutting across five key thematic areas.

This article provides an overview of the first theme: Aligning system governance

Reforming and strengthening the role of the Local Family Justice Boards (LFJBs) to become more proactive at system oversight and preventing delays within their geographical footprint.

Existing challenges

The Family Justice system is a complex tapestry of organisations and processes woven together, each thread influencing the others. The Family Justice System has been described as 'not a system at all' - relying on multiple separate partners to work together collaboratively without a combined lined of accountability, separate budgets, and in the context of different pressures on their separate resources and priorities.

LFJBs play a vital role in overseeing Family Justice at the local level, but their effectiveness, makeup and ways of working varies hugely across different DFJ areas. Communication between agencies can often be slow and duplicative, with critical information not reaching the right person at the right time, resulting in reduced trust and delayed action. We know from the pilot that subgroups are “where the action happens”, but this relies heavily on good links between the main board and the subgroups. A recent report by the National Audit Office on the Family Justice System also reinforced that “variation in the effectiveness of LFJBs affects local performance” and can contribute to delays in proceedings.

Common challenges include:

• Fragmented structures with multiple forums that are often poorly attended or have unclear purposes – or indeed, where additional forums are put in place and do not link in with the LFJB.

• Limited data sharing between partners, despite multiple data sources being collected, causing challenges in understanding what is truly happening “on the ground” with caseloads at different stages of care proceedings.

• Inconsistent practice and variation in training, protocols, and access to resources.

• Lack of a unified, collaborative and action-focused culture – particularly where membership of an LFJB is too large to focus discussions or actions.

Together these challenges result in inconsistent practice and siloed working, with a lack of coordination and collaboration to address local priorities.

Overcoming this structural dynamic, and developing an effective way for the key organisations in a local court area to collaborate, share information, and make joint-decisions, is fundamental to improving ways of working, identifying actions that can reduce delays, and ultimately improve outcomes for children and families.

What did the Trailblazers do?

In response, the Trailblazers developed new delivery governance arrangements built around their LFJBs, or worked with partners to improve and strengthen their existing LFJB structures.

The Essex, Suffolk, Southend-On-Sea and Thurrock Trailblazer developed a regional communication protocol designed to streamline information sharing and build trust between organisations. LFJB membership was refreshed to ensure that key decision-makers were present, and new subgroups were established and empowered to drive action on specific priorities. Clear Terms of Reference and a shared purpose were established for all forums, enabling transparent escalation of issues and shared responsibility for decision-making. These changes were not always easy and required time and commitment from all partners, but they were successful in laying the foundation for more effective governance.

In Central London, whilst there was an LFJB there was limited history for all 12 local authorities across the court area to work together for care proceedings – as understandably, this requires a huge amount of time and resource to coordinate across 12 local authorities! It was more typical for different subsets of neighbouring local authorities to work together on specific projects.

To address this, the Central London Trailblazer designed a more integrated regional governance approach with agreed workstreams, regular collaboration forums, and unified representation to foster increased collaboration across leadership, practice, data sharing, and frontline family support. This work was focused on creating ‘one voice’ representative for all 12 LAs to develop a shared understanding and act together within the system.

Lessons learnt

There were several key factors to the successful design and implementation of these local solutions:

• Completing a comprehensive audit of the current ways of working provided a crucial foundation to the design of new arrangements and ensuring they were realistic and built upon any process or structures that were currently working well.

• Regular engagement with senior leaders was essential to understand their concerns and ensure that the design of the new governance arrangements met their requirements.

• Consistent messaging was needed to share accurate information that outlined what was in scope from the work, and the expected impact it would have on those affected.

• Patience was key, as each organisation was required to secure agreement to the new governance arrangements through their own internal processes.

Initial impact

Although this will truly be a test of time and in some ways it is too early to see full and definitive impacts, the impacts seen so far have been positive. Relationships between different organisations within DFJ areas have strengthened, and refreshed governance arrangements have shown positive green shoots in starting to shift the wider culture and ways of working, improving information-sharing and decision-making.

For more information on this work see this webinar exploring how to build effective cross-system governance.

What is happening next?

Improvement in Family Justice is an ongoing journey, and the value of collaboration and shared purpose is clear. The pilot demonstrated how working together, sharing learning, and focusing on outcomes, can make a real difference and help shape a more effective Family Justice System for children and families.

Our team at Mutual Ventures is now excited to invite all DFJ areas across England to take part in the National Learning Support programme, designed to share the pilot’s learning and insights in more detail, and provide direct support to identify challenges and co-design solutions.

Are you ready to tackle delays in your area?

All local authority Directors of Children’s Services have now received an invitation to join the programme and we are beginning to engage with interested DFJ areas.

If you have not yet responded but would like to be involved in the programme, please contact kate.copeland@mutualventures.co.uk to express your interest to take part in the second cohort of support. This cohort will run from December 2025 to March 2026.