A regulated expert is now required in children proceedings. The Family Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2026 came into force on 20 July 2026, inserting rule 25.5A into the Family Procedure Rules 2010. No procedural rule has previously required an instructed expert to hold regulated status. The transitional line falls on the issue date, not the hearing date.
Who counts as a regulated expert?
Rule 25.2 has been amended to carry the definition. An expert is regulated if they fall into one of three categories. They may be regulated by a UK statutory body such as the HCPC or the GMC. They may sit on a register accredited by the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care. Or they may be regulated by an approved regulator under the Legal Services Act 2007.
The second limb is the one to watch. A PSA-accredited register is a voluntary membership register rather than statutory regulation. The definition is broader than it first looks, and the two are easy to conflate when checking a CV at speed. Confirming which basis an expert relies on is now part of the pre-application work.
The same amendment introduces a definition of technical expert, and technical experts sit outside the requirement. The category covers digital forensics, DNA testing, handwriting analysis and toxicology testing. A separate exemption at rule 25.5A(2) applies to international social workers.
When can an unregulated expert still be instructed?
Rule 25.5A(3) preserves an exception where no regulated expert is available, and rule 25.5A(4) sets out the two grounds. The first is that the issue to which the expert evidence relates may only be resolved with the expertise of an expert who is not a regulated expert. The second is that instructing a regulated expert would cause significant delay which would not be in the child’s best interests.
The exception is not self-executing. Where the court permits an unregulated expert it must give reasons. Those reasons must cover the steps the parties took to identify a regulated expert, and why the expert instructed meets the standards in Practice Direction 25B. PD25C now requires parties to address regulated status in the application and, where relying on an exception, to explain why no regulated expert is available.
PD25B has been amended in parallel. An expert must confirm their regulated status and provide evidence of it, both in the instructions and in the report itself.
Does rule 25.5A apply to existing cases?
No. Rule 6 of the amending instrument carries a saving provision, and the expert evidence changes do not apply to proceedings issued before 20 July 2026. A matter already underway continues under the previous position.
Issue date is the trigger, which produces a practical problem worth flagging on any list of live cases. Two matters running side by side, at similar stages, with the same expert in mind, can sit on different sides of the line. The date on the application is the thing to check, and it is not a date most fee-earners hold in their head.
A Part 25 application naming an unregulated expert will now fail in proceedings issued on or after 20 July, unless the party can evidence that no regulated expert was available. Practitioners with a long-standing unregulated expert on their list need to check registration status before the application, not after. The failure is procedural rather than evidential, which means it costs a hearing rather than a submission.
Where the rule came from
The Family Procedure Rule Committee consulted on the change in March 2025. It recorded that parliamentarians, campaigners and the media had raised concerns about unregulated experts giving evidence in family cases, and about the standard of that evidence. Its consultation document noted that such experts, frequently using the title psychologist, were being instructed to give evidence or offer diagnoses they were not qualified to provide.
The Committee also pointed to Re C. The President of the Family Division gave judgment there on an appeal concerning the instruction of an unregulated psychologist, who had given evidence on the disputed concept of parental alienation. The Association of Clinical Psychologists UK had campaigned on the issue for several years.
The rule does not resolve everything the campaign raised. Including PSA-accredited voluntary registers within the definition leaves a gap between what the rule calls regulation and what a statutory regulator does. That distinction will matter when a report is challenged.
What else changed on 20 July
The same instrument inserts a new rule 9.47. It enables provision to be made in a practice direction about the court giving permission to communicate information from proceedings. Practice Direction Update No. 3 of 2026 amended a number of existing PDs. Most changes took effect on 26 June 2026, the expert evidence amendments on 20 July.
We covered the wider package in our roundup on small claims, criminal legal aid and family procedure. That flagged the Rules without treating rule 25.5A at length. Family practitioners will also want our note on the Court of Appeal’s decision on Wells sharing in Culligan.
The Family Procedure Rules updates page carries the amending rules and the practice direction updates. The Rule Committee’s consultation on the standards required for expert witnesses sets out the reasoning behind the drafting.