News

Social services departments that "interfere" with family life by taking children into care will be placed under closer scrutiny by the courts after a landmark decision by the court of appeal last week.

Under the ruling, the first to consider the impact of the Human Rights Act 1998 on child care plans, judges will be entitled to demand more information from social workers in individual cases and to refuse care and adoption orders where intervention is considered unjustified.

Social services departments will now be under a duty to report to the courts if a care plan breaks down or if a planned family reunion or adoption does not occur within an acceptable timescale.

Lady Justice Hale urged courts to "beware a rose-tinted view of what can be achieved" by social services departments and said they "must hesitate to make care orders unless satisfied that this is indeed the best option for the child".

Not every breach of a care plan would amount to a violation of a child's human rights, she said, but local authorities were duty bound to provide full information to the courts and to keep judges up-to-date on a child's progress in care.

Any major changes in care plans should be reported to the court and judges are entitled to demand updated information if there is a real risk of a child's rights under the European Convention on Human Rights being violated, she ruled.

The ruling was made in two test cases concerning Torbay and Bedfordshire Councils in which care orders were challenged under the Human Rights Act.

The first involved three children from Torbay where the mother's partner had physically, sexually and emotionally abused the eldest. Last year a county court judge made care orders in respect of all three children. The mother had failed to protect the children and had joined in the "emotional abuse", but the ultimate aim of the social workers was to reunite her with at least the two younger children. The court of appeal dismissed the mother's appeal, ruling that full care orders had been justified in the circumstances.

In the second case, a Luton couple had their family life seriously disrupted by the mother's mental health problems. Care orders were made in respect of the couple's two sons last year. Lady Justice Hale overturned the full care orders and replaced them with interim orders. The judge should have "insisted on more information" from social workers or demanded they report back to him if the care plan did not develop as expected, she ruled.