Who said what to whom?
Simon Hughes, recently appointed the Family Justice Minister, has announced that children’s care cases will be completed within 26 weeks. Actually it’s more than an announcement, it’s a legal commitment.
What does it mean?
These are the cases by which courts determine whether children should be taken away from their parents permanently by a local authority. Until the case is concluded, children can’t be adopted and often have to move between temporary homes. Multiple hearings can deepen the trauma for everyone involved. Plus they are costly too, with lawyers’ fees and other costs racking up. The new legislation suggests that cases will be finished up more quickly.
What could go wrong?
The average length of cases at the moment is much higher: 49 weeks. While this is a fall from an average of 55 weeks in 2011, it’s still a lot more than the new legal commitment of 26 weeks. Plus those recent figures are an average, whereas 26 weeks is a commitment for each and every case.
What makes the new commitment even harder to meet is that local authority budgets are being cut. If local authorities have to refocus diminishing budgets to do their bit in radically reducing the length of care cases, then other services might see an even bigger hit. The other way in which local authorities could do their bit is to take fewer children into care, potentially a bad outcome for those children and the opposite to what the government is trying to achieve.
When will we know?
The legislation includes a proviso: the case can be extended if that “is needed to resolve the proceedings justly.” Watching for how often those extension orders are made in future years will tell us what’s really going on.
Commitment rating
This should be a 5, given it’s a legislative requirement, but in reality it’s more like a 1. The reduction in case length that the government is targeting is too much too soon. The ambition is the right one, but being so confident about achieving it when local authority, legal aid and court budgets are all under so much pressure feels like the triumph of rhetoric over realism.
Simon Hughes, recently appointed the Family Justice Minister, has announced that children’s care cases will be completed within 26 weeks. Actually it’s more than an announcement, it’s a legal commitment.
What does it mean?
These are the cases by which courts determine whether children should be taken away from their parents permanently by a local authority. Until the case is concluded, children can’t be adopted and often have to move between temporary homes. Multiple hearings can deepen the trauma for everyone involved. Plus they are costly too, with lawyers’ fees and other costs racking up. The new legislation suggests that cases will be finished up more quickly.
What could go wrong?
The average length of cases at the moment is much higher: 49 weeks. While this is a fall from an average of 55 weeks in 2011, it’s still a lot more than the new legal commitment of 26 weeks. Plus those recent figures are an average, whereas 26 weeks is a commitment for each and every case.
What makes the new commitment even harder to meet is that local authority budgets are being cut. If local authorities have to refocus diminishing budgets to do their bit in radically reducing the length of care cases, then other services might see an even bigger hit. The other way in which local authorities could do their bit is to take fewer children into care, potentially a bad outcome for those children and the opposite to what the government is trying to achieve.
When will we know?
The legislation includes a proviso: the case can be extended if that “is needed to resolve the proceedings justly.” Watching for how often those extension orders are made in future years will tell us what’s really going on.
Commitment rating
This should be a 5, given it’s a legislative requirement, but in reality it’s more like a 1. The reduction in case length that the government is targeting is too much too soon. The ambition is the right one, but being so confident about achieving it when local authority, legal aid and court budgets are all under so much pressure feels like the triumph of rhetoric over realism.
