Shock News – Family Justice System Stretched to Breaking Point

Thanks to Family Law Week for alerting me to this judgment of Thorpe LJ in which the court considered the proper husbanding of limited resources in determining the way forward in a contact case. It was in the course of that judgment last year that Thorpe LJ remarked that the family justice system was ‘stretched [...]

Coalition Agreement

Thanks to Wall of Brick for summarising this here.

Heads and Eyes Rolling

Is there any part of the family justice system not being adversely affected by a lack of resources? . A quite astonishing experience recently in a Family Proceedings Court: already delayed care proceedings were being re-listed for final hearing and all advocates and all parties were united in their view that the case required a [...]

Kinship Carers

Community Care posts an article about a recent judgment concerning a Local Authority’s financial duties towards kinship carers. Although the citation is not provided in the article I believe it is referring to the case of R (on the application of A) v A Local Authority – [2010] All ER (D) 49 (May). In a [...]

CAFCASS – Fact Finding

Jacqui Gilliat on the Family Law Week Blog highlights two concerning practice developments here in her post about CAFCASS. Firstly that CAFCASS officers in some areas are being encouraged to express a view about disputed allegations of domestic violence. In my experience some CAFCASS Officers don’t need much encouragement to do just that, but that [...]

Family Wizard Review

Finally posted something on the FLW Blog. It has been a little neglected…

Washed up and hung out to air in public

Further to my previous post on the passing of the Children Schools & Families Act 2010, The Times has published an article about the new provisions which is spot on: it identifies – importantly – that the new law, when it is brought into force, will in fact be more restrictive than the existing privacy rules covering [...]

Child Care Negligence

Just a signpost to a useful summary of the legal position regarding negligence claims against local authorities / social workers in relation to child protection matters, recently published on the Community Care website.