MoJ withdraws plans to abolish fees paid by councils in care proceedings

The Ministry of Justice has ripped up plans to abolish fees charged to councils for care and supervision proceedings.

In a written ministerial statement, Jonathan Djanogly, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, said: “There is no justification that these fees should be abolished and as such they shall remain”.

The fees were controversially increased in 2008, based on a Treasury objective to increase the proportion of costs of the Courts Service paid for by court users.

A subsequent report by Francis Plowden – commissioned after the Laming review into child protection – found that the costs acted as a disincentive to councils to pursue “marginal” child protection cases and recommended their abolition.

This recommendation was accepted in March 2010 by the then Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who said the fees would be abolished in April 2011.

The fees will now stay in place until at least the publication of the Family Justice Review’s final report in autumn 2011.

Acknowledging that the protection of vulnerable children was paramount, Djanogly insisted that continuing to charge the court fees would not place vulnerable children at risk.

“Local authorities have a statutory duty to investigate instances when they suspect a child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm and it would be unlawful for local authorities to consider financial considerations when deciding whether to do so,” he said.

The minister claimed that Plowden’s conclusion was based on anecdotal evidence alone, and that the review had said it was unlikely children had been knowingly left at unavoidable risk.

Djanogly said the principles in setting court fees at levels that reflect the cost of the service being provided are “now more important than ever”.

He also identified two key benefits of fee charging, arguing that it:

• improves decision-making and accountability by providing greater transparency of the true cost and benefits of the services provided by both charging and paying authority, and
• promotes the efficient allocation of resources enabling authorities to identify particular pressures.

“Local authorities can then ensure sufficient funding is made available form their overall resources to pay court fees and other necessary expenditure in pursuant of their statutory obligations,” the minister said.

He added that the cost of the fees had been built into the outcome of the Comprehensive Spending Review for the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Welsh Assembly Government.

Ed Archer