Court Schemes Report - January 2004
The Association of Northern Mediators, has been involved in developing access to mediation within the North to include the development of the government monitored Leeds Court Mediation Scheme. This has been operating for two and a half years with a limited uptake - there have been currently around 60 appointments under the Leeds Scheme and around 30 under the similar Manchester Scheme. Courts such as Exeter have seen a very considerable uptake in mediation use primarily due to a combination of a proactive judiciary and an inexpensive scheme aimed at low value cases. Birmingham has attracted over 135 appointments over a shorter period. In the last 18 months there has been a number of important Court of Appeal cases where mediation has been encouraged by the judges, and this is certainly reflected by the increasing number of 28 day staying orders allowing parties to try mediation.
We are a loose Association of all the Civil and Commercial mediators in the region and a focus point for regional mediation enquiries. Outside Court Schemes we don't appoint mediators but either answer general enquiries or if asked to do so we commend categories of mediators usually by circulating 3 or more CVs. The parties can then either contact the mediators directly and agree an appointment or get one appointed either through the main providers such as CEDR or via the limited number of Court Schemes available. The Leeds Scheme relies very much on the appointments being made by the Regional office of the Law Society in Wakefield. Similarly the Manchester Law Society over the Pennines runs the Manchester Scheme.
One of the difficulties we faced with the Leeds Court Mediation Scheme was that it had no publicity outside sending the mediation agreement with each allocation questionnaire and general publicity generated by members. Its what I call a passive scheme. Therefore if a judge were to refer parties to mediation in a case management conference there were no helpful mediation details he or she could pass to the parties or their representatives, nor was there anything available within the court general office. We therefore designed and produced a Scheme leaflet in conjunction with the Department of Constitutional Affairs or DAC. This is written in sufficiently neutral terms so as to give potential users sufficient alternatives to the Court Mediation Scheme as well as brief information about both mediation generally and the Leeds Scheme itself.
We firmly believe that enabling parties to easily access mediation schemes assists general access to justice. Our research in monitoring over 600 mediations in the North over the last 4 years still show that over 77% of mediation settle either on the day or imminently afterwards. Of the remainder many more settle far earlier than they would have otherwise done and others narrow the issues in dispute. All this saves time and cost and assist the certainty of the outcome.
We have therefore asked the DAC whether it would be possible to simply extend court schemes to other courts without in any way effecting the evaluation of the Leeds Scheme. The DAC broadly approve the development of mediation initiatives particularly where the public costs are minimal, where there is a track record of providing mediation services to the public at a reasonable cost and using mediators approved as lead mediators by the main training organisations. In November 2003 the Government Minister David Lammy announced the development of 40 monitored court mediation schemes. These include Manchester, where there will be major investment in the court based scheme, and a leaflets only scheme in Birkenhead, Chester, Chesterfield, Huddersfield, Sheffield and some 12 or so other courts throughout the country. What follows does not in any way effect the second category, allowing selected courts outside Manchester to develop their own Scheme.
The Law Society has agreed to extend their appointments service to other courts initially in Yorkshire but extending at a later date to the North West. Therefore we have been reassured to move forward quickly in commending the Pink Mediation Scheme to courts in Yorkshire other than in Leeds.
The scheme is broadly exactly the same as the Leeds Scheme with a very slight adjustment of the lower mediation scale.
The Pink Scheme leaflet would be made available to all the courts in the Yorkshire other than Leeds and we would ask that local courts maintain our contact details to reorder further stocks. The Pink Scheme mediation agreement (ANM1 Pink) can (if the individual court or the circuit area wants) be made available to each court to be included within each allocation questionnaire. That is a matter for each court to consider, and we would be happy to accept or adopt reasonable local variations to keeping within the DAC guidelines in not moving away from the concept of the existing Leeds and Manchester Schemes framework.
The Blue Scheme covering the North West Courts outside Manchester will be announced shortly.
Pink Scheme Documentation
Green Scheme Documentation
Yellow Scheme Documentation
Anthony Glaister
Chairman of the Association of Northern Mediators
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