A divorced father in Manchester waits three months for his ex-partner to comply with a court order granting him weekend access to his children. She doesn't. The court issues an enforcement order. He's one of 5,109 parents who needed the family courts to force compliance with existing orders in 2023.

That number tells a story the headlines about record government surpluses won't tell you. Behind the Treasury's good news lies a family justice system buckling under the weight of parents who simply ignore what judges tell them to do.

The enforcement figure represents a staggering surge from just one case in 2022 to over five thousand in a single year. That's not a gradual increase. That's a system in crisis. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics -- Family_Court_Tables__Jul-Sep_2024_ -- Table_3)

Every enforcement order represents a family where someone refused to follow a judge's decision about children's welfare. Whether it's contact arrangements, maintenance payments, or residency orders, these aren't suggestions. They're legal requirements that carry real consequences for breaking them.

The scale suggests something fundamental has shifted in how separated parents view court authority. When fewer than ten enforcement orders were needed in previous years, the system worked on the assumption that most parents would comply voluntarily once a judge made a ruling.

That assumption is now dead. With over 5,000 cases requiring enforcement action, family courts are spending taxpayer money not on helping families reach agreements, but on forcing compliance with decisions already made. Each enforcement case means additional hearings, additional legal costs, and additional delays for children caught in the middle.

The timing couldn't be worse. While Chancellor Rachel Reeves celebrates higher tax receipts filling government coffers, the family justice system is burning through resources on cases that should have been resolved months earlier. Every enforcement order represents a failure of the initial process and a drain on court time that could be helping other families.

For the children involved, enforcement orders mean months of uncertainty while courts chase parents who've decided court orders are optional. A weekend contact arrangement that should happen automatically instead becomes a legal battle requiring bailiffs, contempt proceedings, or compensation orders.

The Ministry of Justice data reveals a system where voluntary compliance has collapsed almost entirely. When enforcement cases jump from single digits to thousands in one year, it's not about individual bad actors. It's about systemic failure to make family court orders stick the first time.