Councils have been challenged to improve the quality of children's care planning to silence critics of the family justice review's proposal to reduce court powers of scrutiny.
Under proposals put out for consultation in March, the review panel recommended that courts would no longer need to subject a child's full care plan to "rigorous scrutiny", removing checks on local authority decisions, with the aim of removing unnecessary debate from the court process and shortening the length of cases.
Consultation on the proposals closed at the end of last month. Speaking to delegates at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference, chair of the justice review David Norgrove said the panel had received significant opposition on the proposal and urged local authorities to provide evidence on how they can maintain high quality care plans without the oversight of the courts.
"We are recommending that there should be a restriction on the extent to which courts scrutinise care plans and that courts should focus on the core issue of who should be the parent," Norgrove said. "But of the hundreds of pages of evidence I have read, nearly every response was opposed to this recommendation.
"If you want this recommendation to be taken through we need to understand what local authorities are going to do to improve the quality of the care plans that are taken to court. What will they do to the care plan once the court has made the order? And what are they going to do to strengthen the role of independent reviewing officers to ensure care plans are followed through?"
In response, director of children’s services for Stockport Andrew Webb said one of the ways this could be achieved is by highlighting cases of good practice.
"Care planning is not all bad but sometimes it just gets very slow and we, as a leadership organisation, must accept that and do something about it," he said. "We also need to highlight those cases that are very good. We get commended regularly by judges and families.
"But there are cases where our independent reviewing processes are not good enough. Maybe one thing to do in response to the review is to beef up our independent reviewing officer function."
Norgrove also said social workers should be given more training and support to help them articulate their views in the court process.
"Lawyers and judges deal in words all the time and many social workers are not good with words," he said. "Social workers are tough and good with people, but they are not always the best people at explaining that to the court, which could get in the way.
"The proposals they put forward may be good but they are put in a way that doesn’t carry conviction with people who receive them. Too many social workers feel they allow themselves to be bullied by lawyers and parents."
Consultation on the proposals closed at the end of last month. Speaking to delegates at the Association of Directors of Children’s Services conference, chair of the justice review David Norgrove said the panel had received significant opposition on the proposal and urged local authorities to provide evidence on how they can maintain high quality care plans without the oversight of the courts.
"We are recommending that there should be a restriction on the extent to which courts scrutinise care plans and that courts should focus on the core issue of who should be the parent," Norgrove said. "But of the hundreds of pages of evidence I have read, nearly every response was opposed to this recommendation.
"If you want this recommendation to be taken through we need to understand what local authorities are going to do to improve the quality of the care plans that are taken to court. What will they do to the care plan once the court has made the order? And what are they going to do to strengthen the role of independent reviewing officers to ensure care plans are followed through?"
In response, director of children’s services for Stockport Andrew Webb said one of the ways this could be achieved is by highlighting cases of good practice.
"Care planning is not all bad but sometimes it just gets very slow and we, as a leadership organisation, must accept that and do something about it," he said. "We also need to highlight those cases that are very good. We get commended regularly by judges and families.
"But there are cases where our independent reviewing processes are not good enough. Maybe one thing to do in response to the review is to beef up our independent reviewing officer function."
Norgrove also said social workers should be given more training and support to help them articulate their views in the court process.
"Lawyers and judges deal in words all the time and many social workers are not good with words," he said. "Social workers are tough and good with people, but they are not always the best people at explaining that to the court, which could get in the way.
"The proposals they put forward may be good but they are put in a way that doesn’t carry conviction with people who receive them. Too many social workers feel they allow themselves to be bullied by lawyers and parents."
