Government admits 26-week care proceedings target 'unlikely' to be met

The admission comes as latest government figures on family court cases shows that the average length of cases completed between October and December 2014 was 28.7 weeks. 

Only 56 per cent were completed within the 26-week time limit, which became law in April 2014 through the Children and Families Act.

The ambitious measure was introduced to cut delays in the court process so that children can be found a permanent home more quickly, minimising uncertainty and the potential harm that can do to their development.

But responding to the latest statistics, a Ministry of Justice (MoJ) spokesperson told CYP Now: “In April 2013 we introduced a 26-week time limit for completing care and supervision cases, to improve the timeliness of finding a permanent placement for children. However the courts have the discretion to extend cases by up to eight weeks should that be necessary to resolve proceedings justly. As a result the average length of care cases is highly unlikely to ever be 26 weeks."
 
The legislation does allow for the possibility of extending the time limit in complex cases for up to eight weeks at a time, but it is unclear how often this has been used by judges.

When deciding whether to grant an extension, the court must consider the impact that any timetable revision would have on the welfare of the child.

The legislation also sets out that "extensions are not to be granted routinely" and "are to be seen as requiring specific justification".

Local authorities, family lawyers and the court system have spent considerable time preparing for the introduction of the 26-week limit.

In July 2013, revised procedures, called the public law outline, were introduced with the aim of completing care proceedings within 26 weeks.

In addition, the number of hearings required in cases has been cut, and greater emphasis is now placed on the first hearing – the case management hearing – with an expectation that assessments will be of a higher standard, meaning second opinions are not routinely required.

As a result, the average length of care proceedings has nearly halved since the peak of 55 weeks in 2011.

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), which oversees the family court system, said cases started before the introduction of the new timescales were to blame for the 26-week target being missed.

Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas said: "The figures released by the MoJ for October to December 2014 do not distinguish between cases which were in the system before the introduction of the 26-week target and those which commenced after the revised public law outline.

"We must not dismiss the phenomenal response by frontline social workers and judges to the challenge of concluding cases within 26 weeks. Our figures show that for the same quarter, case duration where an application was received on or after 22 April 2014 across all designated family judge areas was under 26 weeks, with one as low as 14 weeks.

"The duration of cases received before 22 April was higher; local authorities, courts and Cafcass are all working to clear the remaining older (pre-April 2014) cases in the system."