Sir Andrew McFarlane has announced that he will be stepping down from his role as President of the Family Division after seven years. He was appointed in 2018 and has long been a supporter of OnePlusOne and other organisations in our sector working to help families navigate separation in the healthiest way possible.
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Speaking at the commons justice committee, Sir Andrew suggested that cuts to legal aid had contributed to the rising number of cases in the Family Court:

“The volume went up after legal aid was largely removed because litigants in person were not meeting solicitors who were saying, ‘Come on, you do not want to go to court about that.’”
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This is not a new problem and nor is it the first time a British judge has criticised cuts to legal aid. In 2019, former Supreme Court president Baroness Hale noted that families in crisis were at a disadvantage due to a lack of access to early help with the process of their separation: "It is that lack of initial advice and help which is a serious difficulty."

Waiting times for families navigating the court system are too long. In 2023-24, a National Audit Office report revealed that there were 47,662 outstanding cases. In human terms, this means four thousand children involved in cases that remained open for over a hundred weeks (NAO, 2025).

Early help

OnePlusOne’s app Separating better is designed to support families early in this process and ease the pressure on the Family Court. Parents who download the app get free access to self-help resources including advice and guidance on legal, financial, and emotional issues, as well as video-based lessons to help conversations go more smoothly with their ex-partner and children.
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Accessing early help can keep parents out of court altogether. In our evaluation, one fifth of parents who used Separating better said they would be less likely to use court to resolve their differences. This is the same as the proportion of divorces estimated to wrongly end up in court.  

Separating better is being funded by OnePlusOne and will be free to download until the end of January.
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