a triarchy press publication
'The Forward March of Children's Justice Halted'
by Edward Lloyd-Jones
Publication Date: 14 October 2008
No. of Pages: 40
Book type: Pamphlet
ISBN: 978-0-955 76 8 156
List Price: £10.00
Offer price: £5.99
This pamphlet is intended as an urgent call to arms. The Labour government is in the process of subverting the children's justice system through a deadly combination of legal aid cuts, court fee hikes, market dogmatism, and reductionist protocols.
What was an inspiration to all professionals involved in justice for children has been systematically dismantled. The Children Act 1989 came into force, with all party support, in 1991. This revolutionised childcare proceedings. Legal Aid was made available to parents, a highly experienced social worker or guardian developed a relationship with the child to ascertain their feelings and needs in order to present the child's interests to the court, and all parties, including the local authority, were equally represented. Gone were the days when a child could be place into care without the anxieties of the parent and child being taken into account. There were some weaknesses in the system but it was an insightful starting point. Rather than build on the knowledge of those directly involved in public family law the government has steadily introduced reforms to subvert this system of justice:-
- Graduated and fixed fees for already economically disadvantaged legal aid solicitors - the number of solicitors' firms undertaking legally aided family work has dropped by more than 40%...
- Court fees charged to local authorities in public law children's cases were increased from £150 to more than £5,000 in May 2008
- Residential assessments for parents and children are to be paid for by an already over-stretched and over-burdened local authority
- Star ratings and key indicators that undermine the professionalism of all who work in this field The Public Law Outline (PLO) has allowed the potential for a decision about the future care of a child to be made without the child being represented.
The openness, empathy, intellectual curiosity and rigour required of, and willingly given by, all professionals who work in this field has been brushed aside in favour of a scientific formula which makes a mockery of common sense.
Quotes from Professionals
"...[there has been] a devastating haemorrhage of
talent and an acute public shortage, particularly in London, of competent
guardians in public law cases."
Lord Justice Wall
"It is unsatisfactory, if not invidious, that courts
charged with taking serious and sensitive decisions about children, where
an under-informed decision could on occasion spell disaster, should have
to choose between (a) over-burdening an already over-stretched local authority
or (b) denying a residential assessment to a parent for whom it represents
the only hope of avoiding the loss of his or her child to adoption".
Mr Justice Bodey
"This astronomical increase in court fees demonstrates
once again that the government has completely lost its way on the fundamentals
of child protection and family justice."
Alistair McDonald, Association of Lawyers for Children
"We have been told that the City of Birmingham estimates
its budget for starting proceedings would increase from £37,500 to £1.5 million."
The Council of Circuit Judges
"Government's treatment of the [family justice] system is nothing
less than death by a thousand cuts..."
Mr Justice Coleridge
"Edward Lloyd-Jones has pulled together the strands
of what now seems to be a systematic dismantling of all that has been achieved
in the last 17 years. He raises questions which need to be urgently addressed."
District Judge Nicholas Crichton
About the Author
Edward Lloyd-Jones has worked in Southwark since qualifying as a solicitor 30 years ago - first, for six years, at the local Law Centre and subsequently in legal aid practice. He has been a member of what is now the Solicitors Regulation Authority's Children Panel since it was set up in the mid 1980s and specialises in representing children and parents in public law care proceedings. Edward is a visiting lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London.
Read a further article by the author: Of Novices and Neuroses
