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Researching Reform

Researching Reform

Daily Archives: December 1, 2022

Family court chief relaunches 26-week deadline for children cases

01 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by Natasha in Researching Reform

≈ 12 Comments

Britain’s family court boss, Andrew McFarlane, has started a campaign to get people working inside the family justice system to stick to the guidance in place for public family law (care) cases, including enforcing a 26-week deadline in which to complete these cases.

The deadline was originally designed to ensure that children did not languish inside the care system, but experiences inside the system have shown the deadline to be pointless. Any length of time away from what children know is for the most part hugely detrimental to them, including abrupt removals which mean children are isolated from the people and places they have known all their lives.

While this kind of removal may be appropriate in some cases, it is only appropriate in a very small number of instances, with most children benefitting from regular and safe contact with their natural families in environments they are familiar with, or comfortable in.

The 26-week deadline is really about ensuring the family courts are not clogged up with cases, and bear no significance for children in care.

The time it takes to process care proceedings in Britain is currently at a nine-year high, with cases taking 44 weeks to complete on average in 2021.

McFarlane also insists that families identify a potential carer within a week – an almost impossible task for some families, as they struggle with resources and other challenges linked to their circumstances.

Another dim-witted call by McFarlane can be seen in his demand that expert witnesses should only be asked to give evidence where “necessary to assist the court” rather than where it is is “desirable or helpful.” What is help, if it is not assistance?

Another example of our family court focusing on the superficial aspects of the law to get these cases out of the system as quickly as possible.

If McFarlane really cared about children, so much more could be done to ensure children in care are treated properly. The rest, of course, would just fall into place.

There is a good summary of the statement on LexisNexis for subscribers.

This is an extract from the summary:

The President sets out the basics of what is required to get back to operating the PLO and to meet the statutory requirement of completing each public law children case within 26 weeks:

• the PLO pre-proceedings process, with the engagement of parents and a thorough assessment exercise, following the Department for Education guidance and the PLWG recommendations, is essential

• only very rare cases that are truly urgent should be the subject of an urgent first hearing

• the first hearing should be the case management hearing (CMH), held not before day 12 and no later than day 18—an advocates meeting is to be held no later than two days before the CMH

• parents are expressly required to identify any family members for assessment at, or within a week of, the CMH

• no other hearing should normally be listed after the CMH until the issues resolution hearing (IRH)

• experts should only be instructed where to do so is necessary to assist the court to resolve the proceedings justly, rather than where it is merely desirable or helpful (CFA 2014, s 13(6))

• the third hearing in the case, if necessary, will be the final hearing

• at the IRH or final hearing the court is only required to evaluate and decide upon the following issues:

○ are the ChA 1989, s 31 threshold criteria satisfied?

○ if so, what are the permanence provisions of the care plan (ChA 1989, ss 31(3A), 31(3B))?

○ what are the contact arrangements (ChA 1989, s 34(11))?

○ by affording paramount consideration to the welfare of the child, what final order(s), if any, should be made?

• the court is not required to consider any aspect of the care plan other than the permanence provisions

• robust case management by the court is required at all stages including, where necessary, regular compliance hearings to deal with any failure by a party to meet dates, the monitoring of compliance with the court timetable and, if needed, the reporting of any failures to the court

McFarlane’s statement can be viewed for free here.

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John Lewis Christmas advert referred to TV watchdog

01 Thursday Dec 2022

Posted by Natasha in Researching Reform

≈ 2 Comments

John Lewis’ annual Christmas advert was referred to UK watchdog the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) Council last month, after the ASA reviewed the advert and decided its Council should be alerted to the content.

The advert, which shows a foster family getting ready to welcome a child from the care system into their home, caused an uproar on social media among children and parents with lived experience of the care system, and child removal. Care-experienced individuals said the advert had triggered them and caused them enormous distress. Others said the advert was in poor taste and exploited children’s pain for commercial gain.

The advert was referred to the ASA by a parent with experience of the care system, who also submitted a complaint to John Lewis. The parent has not received a reply from John Lewis.

The response from the ASA, which this site has seen, said the advert did not break any rules. However, the watchdog felt the points raised by the parent were serious enough to warrant a review by the ASA Council.

While the Council decided not to take action after reviewing the complaint, it contacted John Lewis to make them aware of the complaint it had received and to invite them to consider the contents of the complaint.

The ASA also told the parent that they would keep their complaint on file to use as part of their “proactive ‘intelligence gathering’ sweeps, where we analyse a range of information – including complaints made to us – to report on issues, even when they have not broken the advertising rules, that have caused concern.”

The ASA’s response is added in full below, with only identifying names and details removed:

“Thank you for contacting us with your concern. The complaints we receive are very important, because they help us to build a picture of the types of issues that affect both consumers and businesses.

Your complaint

We understand that you challenged whether the ad was likely to cause distress to those who had been affected by the system and whether it was likely to cause offence.

On this occasion, our initial assessment suggested that the ad may not have broken the rules but given the nature of the points you made, we decided to put your concerns to the independent ASA Council for their opinion. The ASA Council is the panel that ultimately decides whether advertisements are in line with the advertising rules. After careful consideration they have now decided that no further action should be taken this time. Please find more information below.

Our rules

Advertisements should contain nothing that is likely to cause serious or widespread offence or harm or be deemed irresponsible. We base our decisions on the content of the ad, when and where it appears, the audience and the type of product or service being advertised.

This article explains more about how we assess cases in this area https://www.asa.org.uk/news/bad-taste-or-offensive.html.

The ASA Council’s decision

The Council noted that the ad, which showed a foster carer to-be attempting to bond with the young girl by learning how to skateboard, was intended to shine a light on the foster system and ignite conversations about children living in care. Council appreciated that the emotive theme of the ad may have caused some, particularly those who have had personal experiences with the care system, to be upset by the content. However, they considered that the ad was a positive portrayal of this particular (fictional) family trying to make the foster child feel welcome, and it was not suggested that there are families who unfortunately, do not have positive experiences with the system. Council acknowledged that whilst some may have found the ad distasteful, they considered it was unlikely to cause serious or widespread offence or undue distress to viewers.

Action taken

We have made the advertiser aware of the issue that was brought to our attention in case they wish to take on-board the information provided when creating their ads in the future.

Although we won’t take further action this time, we will keep a record of your complaint for reference in our future assessments. We will also take your complaint into account in our regular, proactive ‘intelligence gathering’ sweeps, where we analyse a range of information – including complaints made to us – to report on issues, even when they have not broken the advertising rules, that have caused concern.”

Many thanks to the parent who very kindly shared the ASA’s response with us.

You can access Researching Reform’s earlier article about the advert, which offers a full breakdown of events and context, here.

This is a screenshot of the ad – a live link has not been added as we know this may distress some of our readers.

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