Rathbone Family Mediation has been given your name and contact details by either a referral agency or third party, which might have been your ex-partner, (or by you if you contacted us directly).
While the mediation case is open, we will use this information to make appointments with you and to keep you informed.
All data is stored securely. We will not share your personal information with anyone outside the Mediation Service without your permission.
We will retain your personal information for as long as you are a client, after which time we will store your data for up to 2 years following which both paper and electronic records will be securely destroyed.
You have a right to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You also have a right to ‘be forgotten’ which means you can ask for information we hold about you to be deleted from our records. We can only do this after the case has been closed. You also have the right to complain to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) if you think there is a problem with the way we are handling your data.
Discussions in mediation remain confidential, legally privileged and without prejudice and may not be used in evidence against each other should we go to court, though financial facts disclosed in mediation are open and may be used.
Confidentiality is an integral principle of family mediation. Proceedings in mediation are confidential both as between the parties and as between the parties and the mediator.
As a result, even if the parties agree that matters can be referred to outside the mediation, the mediator can enforce the confidentiality provision. The court will generally uphold that confidentiality save where it is necessary in the interests of justice for evidence to be given of confidential matters. In which case the court will order or permit that evidence to be given or produced.
In line with the above, clients are not permitted to record any conversations or any part of a meeting on any device (including mobile phones).
In addition, family mediations are conducted on a without prejudice basis so that there is a “without prejudice” privilege, belonging to the parties to the mediation (as opposed to the mediator), which significantly restricts your entitlement to disclose what happened and/or was said or done during the mediation. In other words, the communications are “legally privileged”. This is a privilege that clients can waive by agreement or by order of the court in exceptional circumstances. However, it is subject to the issue of confidentiality.
Some issues will be subject to both the without prejudice privilege and confidentiality. The parties cannot waive confidentiality without the consent of the mediator or an order of the court.
In addition, there may be circumstances in which one participant to the mediation shares privileged information with the mediator (for example a letter of advice from his/her solicitor). That information is privileged and belongs to the party disclosing it.
The mediator cannot impart that privileged information to the other participant in the mediation or to the court unless the disclosing party waives that privilege or there are exceptional circumstances or an order of the court.
