According to National Family Mediation (NFM), the Relationships Foundation’s latest “Cost of Family Failure Index” has revealed that the cost of relationship breakdown and divorce is continuing to rise, and has now reached £46 billion a year (which works out at around a cost of £1,541 per taxpayer).
NFM reports that, speaking before the recent budget announcement, Michael Trend, Executive Director of the Foundation said: “Next week’s budget will address the nation’s finances. It will consider how businesses can grow the economy. But the vital output of families will not be part of the accounts, nor the £46 billion cost of their failure which is unsustainable in any economic climate, let alone the current one.
“And the continuing upward movement of the cost of family failure (up from £37 billion in 2009) doesn’t even begin to take into account the often intense pain and suffering felt by those experiencing family failure – the broken hearts and the broken dreams. For example, it is simply not acceptable that, at present rates, only half the children born today are likely to live with both birth parents by the time they are 16.”
