New system to track all public law children cases over 26-week deadline

A new management information system has been launched this month to track every public law case issued from 2 April, the judge in charge of modernising family justice has revealed.

Mr Justice Ryder said the case management system had been designed to replace “the flawed materials which are presently in use”. There will be a national pilot for the whole of the 2012/13 financial year.

In his latest update on the Family Justice Modernisation Programme, the judge said: “The system is able to monitor the progress of cases which the judiciary decide can and should be completed within 26 weeks and where that is not in the interests of the child concerned it will monitor the progress of the timetable for the child which is set by the court.”

The case management system will also record all adjournments, use of experts and the reasons for the same.

Mr Justice Ryder described the introduction of the new system as a "major innovation".

He said: “For the first time the family courts will have a record of baseline information so as to understand where public law cases are allocated and what is the consequence in terms of delay of the case management decisions that are made.”

Every reason for a case management decision made by the case management judge or case manager will be recorded in the appropriate order and logged on the new system, the judge added.

He said: “For the first time we will know why unplanned delay is occurring and we will be able to say so. This ought to influence better management of the overall caseload by judicial management of our own resources i.e. deployment and listing.

“It will also inform discussions between Designated Family Judges and local Directors of Children’s Services and Cafcass service managers as well as with the judges and magistrates who sit locally and the professionals who appear before them.”

Mr Justice Ryder also said the new Family Court – which will replace the Family Proceedings Court, the family jurisdiction of the County Court and the general family work heard by High Court judges – would have an emphasis on evidence based good practice. Peer reviewed research and good practice guidance is to be published in the form of ‘Pathways’.

“It is intended that guidance be given in the form of evidence based plain language pathways which set out the expectations the court has of the parties [and] the expectations the parties should have of the court,” he revealed.

The pathways are to describe a standard 26-week track and an exceptional track based on the timetable for the child.

Mr Justice Ryder said that in support of these pathways there would be guidance given on case management steps or components such as:

• Local authority pre-proceedings work
• Social work evidence
• Key issue identification
• The timetable for the child
• The threshold
• Cafcass/Cafcass Cymru advice and analysis
• Use of experts
• Assistance from the Official Solicitor: mental incapacity
• Placement options and care planning.

The judge added that descriptions of services provided by other agencies would also be published, including but not limited to: In-court administration (HMCTS); Court social work (Cafcass/Cafcass Cymru); Contact services (NACCC); Safeguarding; Testing by commercial organisations; Decisions by the LSC.

Mr Justice Ryder also said that a statement of principle about inquisitorial case management was being considered.

In another development, a project has been set up to identify the court’s expectations of unrepresented parties and vice versa “so that cases involving unrepresented parties are not unfairly prejudiced in terms of their process”.

New materials will be developed to help both unrepresented parties and represented parties who appear against them.

In further comments on the 26-week pathway in public law proceedings, Mr Justice Ryder said it was likely to describe the case in which the threshold was agreed or was plain at the end of the first contested interim care order hearing by reason of the decision made at that hearing.

“Of necessity, the interim threshold upon which an interim care order relies must in its reasoning have identified prima facie evidence in support,” he said.

“The legal environment that remains is a welfare i.e. inquisitorial environment not an adversarial fact finding environment. The problem to be solved is essentially placement which may of course include the success of rehabilitation, the feasibility of kinship options and consequential contact. Even as respects ‘planned and purposeful delay’ cases decisions can be made in principle within 26 weeks.”

The judge added that courts would be encouraged to identify whether in principle a parent would be in a position within the timetable for the child to resume care.

“If that decision is made within 26 weeks it follows that planned and purposeful delay might include the use of court based supervision under validated and research based options such as the FDAC court whose success has been clearly established,” he said.

Mr Justice Ryder said that within this welfare environment, it was likely that the court would start from the proposition that only such expert evidence as is necessary to decide a relevant issue upon which the ultimate decision is based should be ordered.

Changes to the rules and practice directions relating to experts are to make provision for this approach.

“In standard track cases it is likely that if any expert is needed that expert will be a single expert for a party or one agreed expert,” the judge said.

“This is not a quasi-inquisitorial approach. It is a full inquisitorial approach with the court in the driving seat in relation to the issues to be tried and the evidence which is necessary for that hearing to be conducted fairly. It is anticipated that within the review of rules and practice directions, consideration will be given to a system for urgent case management appeals.”