The Family Justice Review (2011) was informed by extensive research on the effects of abuse and neglect on children, particularly those under 5. It found that average duration of cases through the Court system was 50 weeks, with some cases taking up to 61 weeks. The review concluded that this was unacceptable and the system required redesigning in order to reduce the time children were waiting for decisions about permanency.
Procedures were strengthened through the Public Law Outline (PLO), which requires that all care and supervision proceedings must now be completed within a maximum of 26 weeks.
When working with families, and usually when children have been on the Child Protection register for 9 months to a year and there is a deterioration in a family’s situation and evident increase in risk, this may invoke Public Law Outline (PLO) procedures. A contract between the Local Authority and the family is agreed, whereby parents/carers are expected to commit to reducing the risk of harm to the child. The PLO contract would be agreed as a ‘last resort’ to improve the situation before Care Proceedings were instigated.
PLO agreements/contracts will be reviewed theoretically every 6 weeks and progress measured. If deterioration continued and risk of harm to the child/ren increased then the L.A would submit an application for an Interim Care Order. If the local authority do not issue care proceedings after 6 months the local authority will review the PLO contract and may decide to ‘step down’ to child in need status or ‘step up’ to issue care proceedings. The Local Authority is now responsible for submitting relevant documentation at the front end of care proceedings and therefore is expected to have completed any relevant assessments in addition to any specialist assessments and statements of evidence at the point of issue.
What difference has this made in Conwy?
2014 – 2015: 11 cases, totalling 25 children went in to the PLO process, this meant that they had met the threshold for legal proceedings and were accordingly made the subject of a detailed PLO agreement and a Letter before Proceedings meeting. Of those 11 cases, 6 issued as care proceedings, which meant the level of risk to the children was not reduced to a satisfactory level during the PLO process. Of those 6 cases, 4 issued as care proceedings following a specific incident which was deemed to be too high risk for the LA not to share parental responsibility, the other 2 were due to increasing concerns due to a lack of progress being made. Of those 6 cases which issued as care proceedings (from PLO), 3 concluded within the 26 weeks prescribed and 3 are ongoing but are timetabled to conclude within 26 weeks.
Of the remaining 5 cases, 1 case was in the PLO process for 9 months before being de-registered and coming out of the PLO process and is now being worked as a Child in need case, the mother in this case addressed the issues with alcohol and dad acted appropriately as a safe carer.
1 case was in the PLO process for 13 months and will be de-registered from the child Protection register in 1 month and then will be worked for a short period as Child in need, the issues were in relation to the father in the main, however, he is no longer caring for the child, there are no concerns about the mothers care of the child as a sole carer.
1 case was in the PLO process for 12 months, the father has worked with the plan and reduced the areas of risk, the case is now open as Children in need.
1 case was in the PLO process for 6 months, the mother has addressed the areas of risk and neglect, the case is now being worked as a child in need case.
1 case remains in the PLO process and has been in the process for the past 5 months, the department will need to review their stance in a month’s time and decide whether to continue to work in PLO or whether to issue care proceedings.
The Public Law Outline combined with the Family Justice Review is based on the principles of keeping children within the family home or alternative family home wherever possible. The support offered through social work intervention is aimed at identifying the strengths of the parents/carers and building on their resilience in order to enhance their parenting skills. Thus, the 5 cases outlined above had a positive impact for the children within those families who were able to remain within their family unit.