As I continually busy myself creating and designing my family mediation systems and processes to meet legal aid requirements so that our 50 offices are operational by the end of next week, it increasingly occurs to me that, as important as it is to have common quality standards and regulations, these can also very effectively stifle the innovation and creativity inherent in developing an effective and efficient mediation business.

Business structures, processes and system have to be able to quickly respond to changes in the marketplace. This might for example require a rapid decision to add an office here or there. However, to carry out legal aid from an office requires the Legal Aid Agency to approve it and this is sometimes not very forthcoming. The power is in their hands.

Their decision making criteria and priorities are often quite different to the ones mediation businesses are having to make, under pressure, day in day out.

The whole process can become painfully slow.

The fact of the matter is that, when a family mediation business decides to offer family mediation legal aid, it hands over a significant amount of the decisions making power to the LAA, in return for the benefit of being able to offer an every decreasing section of society who qualify for legal aid,  their family mediation services.

Many good family mediation practices are suffering and there is a risk, over the next couple of years, that the only ones who survive to offer legal aid are those who cut costs so much or, worse still, the quality of their work in order to survive.

If family mediation and those offering legal aid are to be treated seriously,the LAA and family mediation businesses need to find better and more efficient ways of working with and supporting hard pressed family mediation organisations.