Family President sees “positive signs of change” after five months of Public Law Outline relaunch
Five months on from the relaunch of the Public Law Outline (PLO) in January, the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, has said there are “already positive signs of change” in the court data and elsewhere.
He revealed in ‘A View from The President’s Chambers: July 2023’ that the data is “beginning to show a reduction in new cases being issued in some areas”. He noted that public law case receipts had reduced by 7.4% nationally when comparing quarter one of 2022 to quarter one of 2023.
One of the key aims of the PLO was to ensure that the statutory requirement of completing each case within 26 weeks is met once again.
The Family President noted that since the relaunch, there had been “widespread acceptance that doing nothing, and simply letting the normalisation of delay bed yet further into our approach to case management, was not a viable option”.
He noted his appreciation for the “very positive way” that local authorities had spoken about the relaunch, and acknowledged the hard work involved.
The Family President reminded that the overall aim in the public law field remains that proceedings should not be issued until “all necessary assessments have been conducted”, so that the only cases brought to court are those that need to be there.
Defending the impact of the PLO relaunch on wellbeing, he said: “I have long been plain that I regard judicial and professional wellbeing as a priority. Some will, and do, see the initiatives that are currently being implemented, principally the Public Law Outline (PLO) Relaunch, as requiring more work and generally being counter to my wellbeing message.
“My motivation, however, in promoting these various schemes is, in the medium term, to relieve the stress and burden that comes from holding a high volume of open public and private law children cases in the system. Being more focussed, having fewer hearings and, in time, reducing the number of ‘live’ cases, is likely to have a positive outcome on our overall wellbeing.”
He concluded by noting that the PLWG recommendation for supervision orders to be supported by a ‘supervision plan’, in the same way that a care order relies on a care plan, should be “widely taken up”.
A supervision order is obtained by the local authority through the court, which requires a child to be supervised by social services, while remaining with their parents or carers.
The PLWG report, published in April, was “welcomed and endorsed” by the President.
Other topics in the President's announcement included the next steps for the national Deprivation of Liberty court and the Transparency Implementation Pilots.
Lottie Winson
See also: Time for Change.
