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Family law guide
Part of: Your First Family Court Hearing
A transparency order is the order a family court judge makes when an accredited journalist or a legal blogger attends a hearing about children, setting out what they may report and what must stay private. Every family court in England and Wales can now make one. A reporter may therefore sit in on a hearing about your children and write about what they see and hear, as long as nothing in the report identifies your family. This guide explains what family court reporting can include, how your children’s anonymity is protected, and what you can ask the judge to restrict.
If a reporter may be at your hearing, book a free initial consultation and one of our specialists will give you initial advice before the day.
It is a court order in two halves. The first half says what information from the case may be shared, who may share it and with whom. The second says what may not be shared, and breaking that half could amount to a contempt of court (Practice Direction 12R, para 2.1).
Without such an order, the starting point is strict. Publishing information from private proceedings about a child’s upbringing can itself be a contempt of court (Administration of Justice Act 1960, s.12). The order relaxes that restriction, so a reporter who keeps to its terms commits no contempt (para 3.2).
Family hearings are still private, and members of the public have no right to be there (r.27.10). The rules let in two kinds of reporter. One is an accredited journalist, who carries a UK press card (GOV.UK). The other is a legal blogger, a lawyer with no part in your case who attends for journalism, research or public legal education (r.27.11(2)). If your hearing is in central London, our Central Family Court guide covers who can be in the room there.
It changed in stages. First, a family court reporting pilot ran in selected courts from January 2023 to January 2025, eventually covering 19 family justice areas (Courts and Tribunals Judiciary). The rules then moved into Practice Direction 12R and reached every family court in three steps (para 1.3).
The rules also cover cases that were already running on those dates (para 1.4). So even if your case started in 2024, a reporter can attend its next hearing.
Pick the answer closest to your case. The result shows what a reporter could publish, what stays out of any report, and the point a judge would weigh. Nothing you choose is saved or sent anywhere.
What a standard order usually allows
Answer the questions above to fit this to your case.
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Based on Practice Direction 12R and the standard order on the judiciary website. A judge can change the standard terms in any case.
They can report what they see and hear in court, and they can quote from some of the written documents (para 3.1). The standard order, which each judge adapts to the case in front of them, draws the line like this (paras 5.2, 5.3 and 6.2).
| Subject | The standard position |
|---|---|
| What happens in court | Reporters may publish what they see and hear. |
| Documents | On request, they may see and quote case outlines, summaries, position statements, threshold documents, chronologies and the bundle index. Anything else needs the court’s permission, even if both parties agree (para 4.13). |
| Names they may use | The council and its director of children’s services, Cafcass as an organisation, court-appointed experts, any NHS trust, the lawyers and the judge or magistrates. |
| Names kept out | The children, parents and other family members, anyone who is a party, foster carers, the social worker, the children’s guardian and any doctor treating the family. |
| Places and pictures | No home address, school, hospital or placement, and no photographs of the children, parents or carers. |
| Other details | No dates of birth, no details of alleged sexual abuse, and nothing else likely to identify the child. |
The documents rule matters if you write your own position statement. When a reporter asks for a copy, the party who drafted it must send it by email (paras 4.7 and 4.8), and that duty falls on a litigant in person too. Write it knowing a reporter may read it.
Two layers protect them. While the case is running, it is a criminal offence to publish anything intended or likely to identify a child as involved in it, or to identify their address or school (Children Act 1989, s.97). A transparency order then keeps that protection going after the case ends, until every child in it reaches 18 (paras 3.3 and 5.2).
Some cases get extra care before any reporting is allowed. They include cases running alongside a criminal investigation or trial, applications made without notice, cases where a child would be hard to keep anonymous, and cases where a party lacks capacity (para 7.12). In a complicated case, the judge can also add a schedule of letters to use in place of names (para 7.11).
However, nothing in the order stops you sharing ordinary news about your child that has nothing to do with the case (para 5.4).
You can ask the judge to limit what is reported, or to keep reporters out of part of a hearing. A party can apply at any time for the order to be made, changed or discharged, and the judge can also act without an application (para 4.5). You cannot simply opt out, though, because the judge decides after hearing you (GOV.UK). You can ask for:
In deciding, the judge balances your family’s right to privacy and to a fair hearing against the right of the press and the public to receive information (para 7.4). The court also expects you to have thought about this before the hearing and to be ready to speak to it at the start. If you are not, it may refuse to adjourn (paras 4.2 and 4.3).
You can if you want to, and you never have to. The standard order lets the parties discuss the case with a reporter and lets the reporter quote them (para 5.5). Even so, it gives you no right to publish anything yourself. A post about the hearing, or a news article shared with comments that could identify your child, can still be a contempt of court (para 5.6). Similarly, showing a reporter a document the order does not list needs the judge’s permission.
We advised a mother whose child arrangements case was listed while the police were still investigating the father over the same events. On the morning of the hearing she learned that a journalist was attending, and she feared a report would let people work out who her son was. We helped her set out, briefly and specifically, why reporting the evidence before the criminal case ended could cause harm. The judge made the order but postponed reporting of that evidence until the criminal case had finished. Every case turns on its own facts.
Before any hearing about your children, write down in two or three lines what could identify your family even without names: an unusual job, a rare medical condition, a small village, or a story that has already been in the local news. If a reporter attends, that note is what you ask the judge to add to the order. Judges expect the parties to have thought about reporting before the hearing starts, and a specific request is far easier to deal with than a general worry.
Hannah Overton, Complex Children Specialist & Client Support
No. Family hearings are held in private, which means the general public have no right to be there. Accredited journalists and legal bloggers are the exception, and the judge can ask them to leave in the limited situations the rules set out.
The standard order lasts until every child in the case reaches 18. The judge can change its terms or end it sooner, either when a party or a reporter applies or on the court’s own initiative.
No. You can tell the judge why your case should not be reported, but you cannot opt out unless the judge agrees. The judge weighs your family’s privacy against open justice and then decides.
Only some documents. On request, a reporter can see case outlines, summaries, position statements, threshold documents, chronologies and the bundle index. Witness statements and expert reports are not on that list, so the reporter needs the court’s permission to see them.
Yes, since 29 September 2025 at the latest. From that date, reporters have been able to attend children cases heard by magistrates in every family court in England and Wales, under the same rules.
Publishing something the order forbids could amount to a contempt of court. While the case is running, identifying a child involved in it is also a criminal offence. If you see a report you think identifies your family, tell the court and take advice straight away.
Two things go wrong with family court reporting. A parent learns on the morning of the hearing that a reporter is there, has nothing ready about the detail that would identify their family, and the transparency order is made in standard terms. Or a parent posts about the case, believing the order covers them, when it only covers the reporter.
A free initial consultation is a conversation with a specialist, who gives you initial advice tailored to your circumstances. It does not include drafting or reviewing documents. If you can, have your next hearing date and the name of the court to hand.
Book a free initial consultation or call 0330 094 5880.
You can also read our guides to your first family court hearing and to child arrangements orders.
General information about the law in England and Wales, not advice on your circumstances.
8 of 29 guides — scroll sideways for more
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Sibling Contact Orders: Protecting the Bond Between Brothers and Sisters
Child Maintenance Tribunal
Applying for a Child Contact Order
Article 21 Hague Convention – International Child Access
Reasons To Stop Child Contact
Reasons why a fathers access to children should not be restricted
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