Picture this. A courtroom deciding the fate of a child, and in strolls someone calling themselves a psychologist with all the credentials of a weekend course and a lively social media presence. For too long, that has been the standard in parts of the family justice system in England and Wales. Not any more.
The Family Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2026 close the door on unregulated experts from 20 July. Courts will generally only be allowed to hear from those registered with a UK statutory body, on an accredited register, or approved under the Legal Services Act. The days of the cowboy consultant are, if not quite over, at least heavily restricted. Jaime Craig, chair of the Association of Clinical Psychologists UK, put it rather well: They give me real hope that the days of bogus experts are over.
The changes flow from section 13 of the Children and Families Act 2014. Permission for expert evidence in children proceedings must now point to a regulated professional unless one of a handful of narrow exceptions applies. Those exceptions cover international social workers, certain technical fields like DNA testing or toxicology, or cases under Schedule 1 of the Children Act. Even then, judges have to spell out why no regulated expert was available, what steps were taken to find one, and why the chosen alternative actually meets the required standard.
This is not some abstract tweak to court procedure. It matters because family cases turn on the most intimate questions: where a child should live, how much contact a parent should have, whether alienation is at play. When unqualified voices dressed up as experts wander in with pet theories or ideological hobby horses, the risk is obvious. Children's welfare and parental rights deserve better than guesswork wrapped in jargon.
The reform did not appear from thin air. It follows judicial guidance from Sir Andrew McFarlane, President of the Family Division, in the case Re Y (Experts and Alienating Behaviour: The Modern Approach). Back in February he was blunt: permission should not be given for an expert psychologist who is neither registered by a relevant statutory body nor chartered by the BPS. Any departure from that rule needs clear reasons set out in a short judgment. The Family Procedure Rule Committee ran a public consultation last year and the resulting rules, laid before Parliament at the end of June, turn that principle into hard practice.
Concerns had been building for years. Unregulated individuals happily using the title psychologist in parental alienation rows or welfare disputes had become a running sore. The Health and Care Professions Council exists for a reason. So does chartered status with the British Psychological Society. When courts ignored those markers, the system invited in testimony that was at best unreliable and at worst actively harmful.
