UK’s CMC Publishes Draft Registration Schemes for Mediators and Provider Bodies

The Civil Mediation Council (CMC) in London has published for comment draft schemes for registering mediators and mediation provider organizations.

The CMC is a non-profit entity established in 2003 at the collaborative instigation of leading mediation providers and practitioners, professional institutions, practitioners and the Ministry of Justice. It’s main object is to “create a culture of best practice by encouraging research, continuing education and quality standards in the field; by issuing codes of good practice; and by conducting accreditation of mediation providers and through them individual mediators”. The current chair of the CMC is Sir Henry Brooke, formerly vice president of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England & Wales. Karl Mackie, CEO of CEDR is the current CMC Vice-Chair. To date, 48 mediation organizations have been registered under a pilot voluntary accreditation scheme that was started in December 2005.

The pilot scheme was suspended following a CMC announcement in mid-November 2008 of two voluntary registration schemes – one for provider organizations and one for individual mediators. The draft schemes can be found at: http://www.civilmediation.org/downloads.php?fid=15. At the same time, the CMC published draft Codes of Good Practice – one for mediation providers and one for individual mediators. These can be found at: http://www.civilmediation.org/downloads.php?fid=16. Associated with these draft Codes is a draft Complaints Review Scheme which may be found at: http://www.civilmediation.org/downloads.php?fid=17. The CMC has also announced that a registration process for mediation training organizations, and a Code of Good Practice for trainers, will be introduced in 2010.

When the CMC initially announced these voluntary registration schemes, they intended to have them enter into force on January 1st. 2009. However, comments to the CMC are now invited by the end of January 2009, and an Extraordinary General Meeting of the CMC has been scheduled for March 30 2009 to finalize and adopt these schemes.

See the CMC’s announcements and find out more at the CMC website: http://www.civilmediation.org/

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