Mediation Services (Hansard, 17 December 1997)

§ Dr. Brian Iddon (Bolton, South-East)

Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to raise the subject of mediation services in the Adjournment debate. My aim is to highlight the good work that all mediation services carry out, and to suggest that they are so cost-effective that the Government should consider promoting them in future.

When I suggested the title for this Adjournment debate, I wondered which Minister would attend, as mediation services encompass a wide cross-section of the Government's corporate activity; and I am happy to see the Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions, my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr. Raynsford), present today.

Mediation is a process whereby a third party helps two disputing parties to resolve their disagreements. The disputing parties—not the mediator—determine the final outcome. Currently, mediation is used most commonly to resolve disputes between neighbours, and I shall concentrate on that aspect today. However, mediation is also applied to victims and offenders, bullying in schools, family feuds, divorce, domestic violence and commercial and industrial disputes.

In mediation, the mediator approaches the first party, who has been referred to the service, then the second party, and attempts to get both parties to proceed to mediation. About 30 per cent. of those who agree to mediation meet face to face; of the rest, about 40 per cent. are dealt with by shuttle diplomacy, and various alternative solutions are found for the remainder. Mediators usually follow up cases after initial agreements have been reached, to ensure that they are long lasting. Agreements often involve reparation—for example, an apology or repair of damage.

Only a small number of neighbour disputes are referred—89 per cent. are resolved informally between the neighbours themselves. Apart from self-referrals, most referrals come from the local authority, especially housing and environmental health departments, but they also come from the police and citizens advice bureaux.

The cause of 60 per cent. of complaints is noise—for example, from barking dogs, hi-fi music, loud television sets, burglar alarms, noisy children, do-it-yourself activities and household appliances. Boundary disputes, untidy gardens, overhanging trees and the parking of vehicles are other prominent causes of dispute.

Neighbour disputes can escalate out of control. They can become extremely costly both to the disputants and to the agencies involved, and they sometimes result in violence or even fatalities. At the very least, they can cause untold misery to many of our citizens—for example, a boundary dispute involving a fast-growing conifer hedge began in 1979, lasted 17 years and resulted in £100,000 in court costs.

I joined Bolton metropolitan borough council in 1977. For 20 years, I have served its housing committee; I was its vice-chairman for two years and its chairman for 10 years from 1986 to 1996. I soon realised that elected members, but more especially housing and environmental health officers, spent a disproportionate amount of their time dealing with neighbour disputes.

291 I therefore decided to set up what became the first local authority-run neighbour dispute service in the entire United Kingdom—Bolton Neighbour Dispute Service, or BNDS. Its co-ordinator, Sue Parry, was appointed using inner-urban programme money in September 1991, and soon afterwards we appointed an administrative assistant, and 25 volunteers were sought and trained.

On 29 June 1992, a pilot scheme was launched in the Deane and Daubhill areas of my constituency. In the first year, the budget was £29,300, and in the first six months 45 cases were dealt with. Bolton was careful to involve all householders, whether public sector or private. The budget for 1995–96 was £40,000, 50 per cent. being met from the housing revenue account and 50 per cent. from the general rate fund.

Today, BNDS operates across the 110,000 homes of the borough. Although it is sponsored by the housing department and the council, it operates independent of the council. Up to a maximum of 42 volunteers have now enrolled for training. They have a job description, and handle one case at a time, often working in pairs.

The Bolton service has been a model for the start-up of many similar schemes throughout the country. In the three months from April to June 1997, 49 cases were closed. Of those, eight were not thought suitable for mediation, eight first parties withdrew, and in a further eight cases, the second party was unwilling to participate. Of the remainder—that is, the 51 per cent. of referrals that agreed to participate—24 cases out of 25 were successfully resolved, which is a success rate of 96 per cent. That period snapshot is not atypical of the service.

Mediation grew out of the United State and Australia. Neighbour mediation first appeared in the United Kingdom in 1980; by 1985, only three operational schemes were known; in 1996, there were 54 schemes; and today, in 1997, there are nearly 100. In other words, growth has been rapid in the 1990s. It is interesting to note that, in the early days, the Quakers showed the most interest in mediation.

Despite the cost-effectiveness of mediation services, funding is the major constraint on growth. Some schemes have been supported by charitable trusts, but most rely on rather insecure local and national government grants. "Neighbour Disputes" by Jim Dignan, Angela Sorsby and Jeremy Hibbert, published by the university of Sheffield in 1996, is one of the few detailed pieces of research in this area, and it compares very favourably the costs of mediation with those of alternative approaches involving the courts and various legislative procedures. It would be nice if the Minister would look at the problem of funding, and promote mediation as an extremely cost-effective method of dealing with many issues.

An umbrella organisation called Mediation UK developed in Beaconsfield from a Home Office secondment. Its headquarters has been in Bristol since 1991. Such a national organisation is essential to promote best practice, organise training and, perhaps most important, provide accreditation for new and old organisations alike. Mediation UK has a funding problem too.

I shall briefly mention one spin-off from the BNDS—the "bully-free zone" programme, of which I am proud to be a patron. Bullying in our schools has been in the 292 headlines recently. In Bolton, a grant was obtained to introduce into eight volunteer pilot schools peer mediation, whereby trained senior pupils mediate between bullies and victims. Of course, serious cases are referred to school staff. Initial signs are good, and, if the pilot scheme proves successful, it will be expanded to all schools that want to participate.

I am pleased to announce that, last week here in London, that pioneering scheme was honoured for outstanding citizenship at a major awards ceremony in memory of murdered London headmaster Philip Lawrence. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and Mr. Lawrence's widow, Frances, presented a plaque to four young people who had participated in the scheme.

I hope that I have demonstrated the usefulness of mediation services and I look forward to the Minister's response. I might add that Lord Woolf speaks very favourably of ADR—alternative dispute resolution—in his interim report to the Lord Chancellor on the civil justice system in England and Wales, "Access to Justice", published in 1995.

I thank the countless individuals, including thousands of volunteers, who have helped to make all the mediation services such a great success across the United Kingdom.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions (Mr. Nick Raynsford)

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, South-East (Dr. Iddon) on his success in securing this debate. I am pleased to have the opportunity to respond to the issues he has raised about mediation services—an extremely important subject.

As my hon. Friend said, mediation is one of those subjects that cut across a number of Government Departments. He indicated some curiosity as to which Minister would reply, so I should start by offering him an explanation of why I am here.

I am replying to the debate because my Department has been actively involved in encouraging and promoting mediation as a possible alternative, which may be more appropriate than the statutory routes and sanctions when dealing with some types of neighbour disputes. That is particularly true in relation to disputes involving noise, but it may also apply in some other disputes involving general anti-social behaviour.

Complaints about neighbour noise have continued to rise in recent years. My Department set up a working party in October 1994 to investigate a variety of options for strengthening the current controls over neighbourhood noise nuisance. The working party considered, in particular, whether there were alternative, informal remedies that might provide swifter relief for noise sufferers.

In its conclusions and recommendations, the working party acknowledged the value of informal remedies, such as mediation, to deal with complaints of noise nuisance. The working party agreed that local authorities and the public should continue to be encouraged to resolve neighbour dispute problems informally, where this was appropriate.

In November 1994, the Department issued an information paper, "Mediation; Benefits and Practice", to chief environmental health and chief housing officers 293 in local authorities in England and Wales. That paper encouraged local authorities to consider mediation as a possible option to resolve noise and other neighbour disputes. In addition, my Department, when responding to noise complaints, includes in correspondence leaflets that mention the services of mediation as a solution to disputes. The working party also recommended that the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health should produce best-practice guidance for distribution to local authorities on the management of noise services. Within the "Noise Management Guide", which was published in February this year, the institute has recommended that mediation should be considered as an integral part of the local authority response to noise complaints". My hon. Friend referred to the work of the Bolton neighbourhood dispute service, which he helped to set up. I congratulate him on that initiative; I was pleased to learn of the project's success.

In my constituency, there is a very successful mediation service called the Greenwich mediation service. The organisation is funded from the housing revenue account, and currently only handles disputes involving council tenants. However, I understand that the source funding may be changed to enable the service to be available to all borough residents, as is clearly the case in Bolton with the initiative that my hon. Friend helped to establish.

My hon. Friend referred to research on neighbour disputes undertaken by the centre for criminology and legal research at the university of Sheffield. That was jointly funded by the then Department of the Environment and the Lankelly Foundation. That research considered the cost-effectiveness of mediation and alternative approaches.

The report's findings call into question the effectiveness of both the formal and informal approaches conventionally adopted for handling neighbour disputes. It suggests that mediation might offer a more constructive solution to the problem where both parties are willing to give it a try.

The findings also suggest that there is genuine scope for significant savings to be made by using mediation in appropriate cases, especially in relation to some of the more intractable neighbour disputes with which housing and environmental services are routinely called to deal. The report proposes a strategy for increasing the number of cases that could be dealt with by means of mediation, and identifies a number of suggestions for further research.

In order to publicise the message contained in that report, the then Department of the Environment sent in November 1996 a copy of its executive summary, and a leaflet which gave advice to those considering setting up a community mediation service, to each chief housing and environmental health officer of every local authority in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

In March 1996, the DOE appointed the Building Research Establishment to undertake research that would increase the understanding of domestic noise complaints. The research was designed to address a number of issues, including the reasons for the complaints, the main types of noise sources, how the noise was measured and assessed, and the most effective methods adopted to resolve disputes. The project was to include an 294 exploration of the effectiveness of current procedures for dealing with domestic noise complaints from the perspective of the investigating officer, the complainant and the person complained about.

The BRE research has found that there is a difference of opinion on what constitutes a satisfactorily resolved complaint between all three parties. On the ground of common sense, that is hardly surprising.

On mediation, the BRE believes that there is a need for guidelines that clarify the point at which mediation can be recommended without exposing the investigating officer to complaints of maladministration. It also concludes that the resolution of complaints by direct negotiation between neighbours should be facilitated, wherever appropriate. That endorses the view expressed by my hon. Friend when describing the work of the Bolton mediation service. The Department has only recently received the BRE's final report, and we are considering how best to publicise the report and what points need to be addressed.

I acknowledge my hon. Friend's concerns about funding, both for local mediation services and at a national level. At the local level, it is up to each local authority to decide how much is spent on which service in the light of local needs and priorities. Many local authorities, such as Bolton metropolitan district council and my authority in Greenwich, have established or supported local mediation services.

At the national level, my Department has been funding the umbrella organisation, Mediation UK—to which my hon. Friend alluded—since 1 April 1994, under the environmental action fund. That funding runs for a three-year cycle, and Mediation UK is now in its third year of EAF funding. In total, it has received more than £90,000 from my Department in that period.

For 1997–98, Mediation UK set a target of helping to bring 18 new community mediation services into existence, bringing that up to a total of 90 centres by 1998. It has already helped to set up 17 centres so far in 1997, and may well exceed its target. I believe that that is money well spent.

Mediation UK has submitted an application for a further three-year period of EAF support. It has submitted a bid for a grant of £50,300 in 1998–99. However, EAF funding is subject to great competition. My Department receives a large number of high-quality bids seeking the limited funding. We shall be considering all applications for EAF grant early next year, and hope to announce the successful applicants in early February. You, Mr. Deputy Speaker, will understand that I cannot pre-empt the process by saying whether Mediation UK's application is likely to be successful. However, I stress that we expect voluntary bodies to look widely for other sources of funding, including grants or sponsorship from the private sector and charitable trusts.

My hon. Friend referred to the contribution of the right hon. Lord Woolf in his interim report on alternative dispute resolution to the Lord Chancellor. The Lord Chancellor's Department has taken forward Lord Woolf's recommendations on ADR in several ways.

First, the Lord Chancellor's Department has published a booklet entitled "Resolving Disputes Without Going to Court" to help to make the public more aware of the possibilities that ADR can offer. I understand that the 295 Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department, has recently sent copies of the booklet to new hon. Members for use in their constituency offices.

The booklet lists different organisations, including Mediation UK, that offer mediation, conciliation and arbitration services for non-family disputes. It gives a brief description of those services, and sets out some of their advantages and shortcomings. It is available from county courts, the royal courts of justice and many citizens advice bureaux and law centres. Copies have also been placed in the reference sections of public libraries, and have been sent to business links and business connect centres in England and Wales respectively. The Scottish Courts Administration has produced a similar publication covering Scotland.

Secondly, the Lord Chancellor's Department has recently consulted on case management proposals that provide an automatic three-month stay on request, if parties wish to use ADR. The Lord Chancellor is considering the responses to that consultation with a view to implementing the proposals in April 1999 as part of his package of civil justice reforms.

Thirdly, in November 1995, approval was given for a pilot scheme for alternative dispute resolution at Central London county court. The scheme has been running since May 1996. The Lord Chancellor's Department is funding academic research into the scheme to evaluate the impact of mediation on the outcome of cases.

Of particular interest and significance is the fact that the researcher is investigating why parties and/or their representatives have rejected the offer of mediation. Further pilot schemes are running at Bristol county court and in the Court of Appeal. The Lord Chancellor will examine the results of the research closely before deciding 296 his next steps. He is concerned to assess whether current schemes result in successful and satisfactory outcomes and save money for both the parties concerned and the civil justice system.

My hon. Friend referred to his role as patron to the "bully-free zone" programme in Bolton. I was interested to hear about the pilot scheme introducing peer mediation in schools. Bullying and peer mediation in schools are, of course, matters for my colleagues in the Department for Education and Employment. However, I know that the Department takes the issue seriously, and I understand that it has made an anti-bullying pack available to all maintained schools in England.

It is important for schools to decide which strategies for tackling bullying best meet their pupils' needs and circumstances. In some situations, peer mediation may provide the answer, but in others a different approach may be necessary and more effective. Over the coming months, colleagues at the Department will consider what action might be taken to help schools to tackle and reduce bullying.

I hope that I have reassured my hon. Friend that the Government fully recognise the value that mediation can bring to the community. We do, however, recognise that using mediation to resolve a dispute may not always be possible or successful. Nevertheless, it is certainly one of the preferred options, and a much more civilised method than a confrontational approach.