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Justice system scandal fails children
The horrific case of Baby Peter highlighted how intolerable it is for any child to be left at risk of harm, yet our courts are deciding children’s futures and the young people themselves are being denied a say, argues barrister and Liberal Democrat parliamentary campaigner Jo Shaw
PROTECTING children is something we can all agree is important. How we treat the most vulnerable people in society is the measure by which our society should be judged.
The recent case of Baby Peter in our neighbouring borough of Haringey horrified most of us.
For any child to be left at risk of such cruelty and harm is intolerable.
My colleague Lynne Featherstone MP has spoken out passionately about the failures in Haringey social services. And just last week I spoke in a debate at the Liberal Democrat party conference about child protection.
I have spent the last nine years working as a barrister – part of my work involves family law, including care cases.
I know how the system works, and what is badly wrong with it.
Because there is a scandal occurring right now in our justice system.
This is affecting our most vulnerable children who are the subject of care applications by the local authority.
Under the laws which govern care proceedings, a child who may be taken into care has the right to a children’s Guardian.
This person is a specially trained, experienced and, crucially, independent person trained in social work whose sole job in the court case is to represent the child.
The Guardian is the child’s voice in the proceedings and informs the court what is in their best interests.
So a Guardian will advise the court if it is in the child’s interests to be returned to live with their parents, go to live with another member of their family, or be placed for adoption.
By the third day of any court case involving an application for a care or supervision order, a children’s Guardian is supposed to have been appointed.
But in recent cases it has been taking the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) weeks or months to appoint Guardians.
At present there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cases across the UK where Guardians have not been appointed.
This means hundreds or thousands of children are without a voice in the court where decisions are being taken about whether they will live with their family or even have any contact with them. They may well be permanently removed from their family.
Children’s futures are being decided, and the children themselves are denied a say. This is a scandal.
One case of such delay would be bad enough.
But at the beginning of August, in London alone, there were over 400 children without a Guardian.
The reasons for this are clear to see. In March 2008 the fees for issuing care cases were increased from £150 to nearly £5,000, per case.
That is an increase of 3,000 per cent. Entirely predictably, local councils up and down the country decided to “wait and see” with vulnerable children rather than issue applications for care orders.
Then in December 2008 the tragedy of the case of Baby Peter hit the headlines.
Local authorities then panicked and issued more care applications than ever before, including a record 774 in June.
The system was unable to cope with the massive increase in demand and so there are children waiting for weeks and months for their voice to be given to them.
There is a further complication. In 2001 the government abolished Court Welfare Officers who did the same job, essentially, as Guardians through 137 local organisations.
Those local organisations were closed down and replaced with Cafcass, a quango which centralised the employment and management of Guardians.
Cafcass made decisions about priorities in cases which experienced men and women could not accept.
This over-centralisation led to a large number of experienced and dedicated Guardians quitting their job.
For the state to intervene in a child’s life is a huge step. The weighing-up process which judges have to undertake is delicate and needs expert assistance.
Too many children are being cheated of the right to be heard when these crucial decisions are being taken.
If this government is serious about child protection, it needs to put money where its mouth is and appoint more Guardians.
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