Care Proceedings Changes In The Wind

Children must be at the heart of care proceedings
Department for Constitutional Affairs Press Release
16 April 2007
The welfare of children must be at the heart of the processes involved in considering whether to take a child into care, Family Justice Minister Harriet Harman will say today. Ms Harman will be speaking at a conference organised by The Michael Sieff Foundation with the support of Children Law UK to examine the future of childcare proceedings.

Recommendations on how to improve the way the system works were set out in the Review of the Child Care Proceedings System in England and Wales, published by the Department for Constitutional Affairs in May 2006. The majority of the review's immediate recommendations are being implemented through a combination of:

* revised statutory guidance to support local authorities in preparing care applications, which will be issued by the DfES under section 7 of the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970;

* a new protocol for progressing care cases, which is being developed by the judiciary; and

* improved availability of pre-proceedings legal advice to parents being developed by the Legal Services Commission.