Leading child protection lawyer gives initial backing to six-month deadline

A leading local government childcare lawyer has given his initial support to the six-month deadline for conclusion of care proceedings proposed by the Family Justice Review panel.

Graham Cole, Principal Solicitor (Social Services) at Luton Borough Council, said: “We know that it will not be instantly achievable, but it should help to exert some downward pressure on these case to conclude them more quickly. Current practice is not achieving this.”

Cole, who is chairman of Solicitors in Local Government’s Child Care Lawyers Group, pointed out that the delays had increased significantly – the average time now taken to conclude a case in the county courts was 61 weeks.

He said: “That is appalling delay for children and we have cases that have been before the courts for two, three and four years. How can that be allowed to continue?”

Cole said he also welcomed the recommendations that courts should not scrutinise local authority care plans "to the minutest degree", and that courts should be more prepared to trust social workers and reduce reliance on experts.

“That will, of course, require local authorities to raise their game to ensure that they produce assessments that the courts can rely upon,” he said.

Asked about the resourcing implications for local authorities of the proposed deadline, Cole acknowledged that it would an issue.

“But I think that will be a challenge for all parts of the family justice system at a time when resources are tight,” he said.

Local authorities will need to ensure that they retain and develop social workers with experience to produce good quality assessments, he said. They will also need to retain and develop good quality child care lawyers.

“This will not be easy to achieve, but I think that the Family Justice Review has produced a sensible direction of travel,” he said.

Cole added that his only reservation so far centred on the panel’s recommendation that the requirement for adoption panels to approve local authority plans for adoption be removed.

“The expertise provided by panels gives an ‘added value’ to the process although I accept that their removal from the process would probably contribute to reducing delays,” he said.

Philip Hoult