The Minister of State for Justice, Lord Faulks, announced the finding from the 2014 CEDR Mediation Audit that the UK mediation market had grown by 9% in the last year, meaning that 9500 commercial mediations were performed in the last 12 months.

The audit also shows that in the last 12 months £9 billion worth of commercial claims were mediated and that through mediation this year businesses will save £2.4 billion in management time, relationships, productivity and legal fees. As a profession, Mediators and Service Providers in the last year earned £22.5 million - this is an impressive return on investment when compared with the savings.

The results of the CEDR Audit, which is conducted every two years, were announced at the Civil Mediation Conference in Leeds. The Audit received 295 eligible respondents and was conducted alongside a survey of lawyers who use mediation which gave a useful client perspective. The Audit's key findings, made possible through collaboration with the Civil Mediation Council made a number of encouraging findings for the mediation community:

• The trend towards appointing mediators directly seems to have halted, in 2014 it happens in 66% of cases, but in 2012 it was 71%. Mediation Service Provider numbers seem to be getting better possibly because there also appear to be more successful groupings of mediators
• The group of the most experienced mediators has grown by 30%
• There are signs that younger mediators are getting more work and the number of female mediators is increasing although there is still a need for more ethnic diversity in the market
• Amongst working mediators, non-lawyers are a fast growing group - dominance of the profession by lawyers has now shrunk to 52%.
• When appointing a mediator, lawyers ranked the following factors (in order of importance) from a list of 17 items: the mediator's availability, the mediator's personal style, the mediator's experience, their background or qualifications and finally their fees
• Just over 75% of cases settle on the day of mediation and another 11% shortly after (the combination of these numbers is similar to previous years)
• On average there are 16 hours input from a mediator on a case, but the time is spent differently according to experience
• Mediators say 71% of lawyers and 62% of clients do well at mediation and only 14% and 15% are inadequate. These figures show an improvement on previous years
• Lawyers also say that mediators are doing well at mediation - 82% and only 6% inadequate. These too are improving figures
• Mediators' fee rates have on average come down in price slightly since 2012
• There is a strengthening of mediators (76%) and lawyers (57%) wanting more encouragement to mediate disputes (although mandatory mediation is still unpopular – only 15% of mediators in favour)
• Over three quarters of both mediators and lawyers say that with regard to the Jackson reforms impact upon mediation there has been no difference or it’s too early to tell