The Public Law Outline (PLO) comes into use on 1 April and aims to speed up family law cases. However, the guidance does not mention the government's target for completing cases within 40 weeks (CYP Now, 31 October-6 November) as on occasions this might not be in the best interests of the children.
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice, which published the guidance, said: "The reason it is not explicitly expressed in the outline is because we want people to be entirely focused on what's best for the child in each individual case. While the target is still there, this is about allowing people to be more flexible. It should be child centred and not target centred."
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