I was rather sad to read the latest ‘success figures’ from the first year of Small Claims mediation at court.
HMCTS have reported that they have had 64,000 referrals to mediations from those issuing a claim at court, in the last year.
Of those, only 43,000 actually had mediations and only 16,000 of those actually settled. That’s a hit rate of just 37.2%; of the mediations that took place or if we want to spin the figures properly only around a quarter of those people requesting mediation at court, got it resolved through mediation there.
I have a number of pretty obvious theories about this. While recognising that it’s excellent that mediation is now mandatory at the small claims level (clams under £10k) the fact that these mediations take place by phone, are conducted by court staff, and only are allocated for an hour, is really notgiving those involved much of a chance.
The Society of mediators has been pioneering a free mediation IN PERSON scheme with TRAINED mediators, on the day in court, for however long the judge will allow, and I know the SOM success rate is above 97%! Here at Riviera Mediation, our success rate is above 95% both last year and this. We accept that people have to pay for this service, but with such a high guarantee of a successful settlement and control of the outcome – surely thishas to be worth it?