A trial programme for family court reporting will launch in England and Wales

Journalists may cover the proceedings as long as they maintain the confidentiality of the families' identities.

As part of a long-awaited trial project to increase transparency in the justice system, journalists will be able to report what they see and hear in the family courts in three sites in England and Wales starting next week.

Reporters are now permitted to attend closed hearings, but they are only permitted to report on what they see if the court agrees to change the automatic reporting limits put in place to safeguard the privacy of minors.

In the pilot, which will debut on Monday in Leeds, Cardiff, and Carlisle, accredited journalists and legal bloggers will be allowed to report on the proceedings as long as they maintain the anonymity of the affected families.

Sir Andrew McFarlane, the president of the family division, stated this move was a "really big change".

He claimed that due to the difficulty of "squaring the circle" of increasing public trust while maintaining the anonymity of parents and children, the question of opening up the family courts to more scrutiny has "sat in the too difficult box" for a long time.

After an outside organisation has reviewed the pilot, the programme might be implemented in all courts in England and Wales, according to McFarlane.

The family justice system handles slightly under 250,000 cases annually, and in the past, it has come under fire for allegedly functioning "in secret."

In cases of parental conflict or claims of abuse, the courts have the authority to make choices that could profoundly impact a child's life, such as placing them in foster care or choosing who they should live with.

"I don't think there is a crisis of [public] confidence, but I think there is a vacuum at the moment. They don't know what we do, so they can't be confident." said McFarlane.