Legal Planning Meetings

Legal Planning Meetings are an essential part of the process for dealing with public law children's cases and should be convened where it is clear that the protection or welfare of a child cannot be achieved without the security of a legal framework around any necessary further assessment.

Sir James Munby, President of the Family Division in ‘The Process of Reform: the revised PLO and the Local Authority’, states that a properly organised legal planning meeting is invaluable and can be the key to achieving timely outcomes to Care Proceedings. He also recommends that local authority lawyers be involved, advising and assisting their social work clients, at an early stage.

During the meeting legal advice is provided to the Committee for Health and Social Care about the legal options available to safeguard and promote the child’s welfare. The meeting will take into account the quality of the evidence available, decide whether to issue a Letter Before Proceedings, whether to issue public law care proceedings and whether the support of a private law application is in the child’s best interests and will achieve the desired outcome.  Importantly the meeting should consider alternative resolutions that avoid the need to initiate public law care proceedings.

All cases in legal proceedings must be reviewed at Legal Planning on a regular basis, at a minimum of three monthly.

The decision to convene a Legal Planning Meeting will be made by the social worker's line manager usually following discussion with the allocated Social Worker in supervision.  The decision can also follow a recommendation from a Child Protection Conference or a Child in Care Review.  Once the decision has been made to convene a Legal Planning Meeting, the social worker is required to complete a Request for Legal Advice Form and email it to the chairperson, legal advisor and the administration team responsible for arranging the meeting.

The meeting will usually be chaired by the Service Manager, Assessment and Permanence. The meeting will usually involve the following, the child's social worker; the social worker’s Team Manager, States of Guernsey legal advisor; and any other professional from other agencies or services that have relevant involvement with the family and whose view would assist in making decisions about the child's legal status, who has first-hand evidence and may be a potential witness; and/or who may be involved in the provision of services integral to the order being sought.

Where the child has been in foster care, the views of the foster carer should be sought by the child’s social worker, and taken into consideration in the legal planning meeting. This may include information on the child’s progress in their placement and on the impact of contact with their family.

In order to allow a full discussion to take place, the following documents must be completed in full and sent to the chair and legal advisor at least 2 working days in advance of the meeting:

1. Current social work assessment – Child’s Plan;
2. An up to date social work Chronology of significant events;
3. A clear Genogram, which includes the relationships of any family members subject to viability assessment;
4. Details of any previous court ordered assessments, viability assessments and any other relevant specific assessments.

In exceptional circumstances where time is of the essence, the Chair can decide to proceed with a Legal Planning Meeting even though all of the required documentation is not available.

A Legal Planning Meeting is an opportunity to discuss a case fully, and to consult with colleagues to ensure that children are the subject of active case management and that appropriate legal action is taken when required to promote and safeguard the welfare of the child.

The role of the Children’s Service Manager is to make the decision, should Threshold be met, on whether Care Proceedings should be issued, a pre- proceedings process followed, a referral to the Children’s Convenor made, no further action taken or the matter deferred.

In order to enable a full discussion to take place, the following must be available:

The issues to be considered at the meeting will include the following:

• The reasons for the concerns and the evidential basis for establishing Significant Harm and the Section 35 threshold criteria for compulsory intervention, section 49 threshold criteria for a Community Parenting Order or section 55 threshold criteria for an Emergency Child Protection Order;
• Whether public law Care Proceedings are necessary and in the child’s best interests, and what would be the purpose of such proceedings, including what orders would be sought, and why
• Whether it is in the best interests of the child to provide a further period of support for the family with the aim of avoiding proceedings; or whether proceedings should be initiated immediately;
• The steps already taken to clarify the issues of concern - i.e. Single Assessment Child’s Plan, as well as other medical and other expert involvement;
• Whether it is appropriate to provide written notification to the parents about the areas of concern (Letter of Concern) and their right to seek legal advice;
• When will the Single Assessment Child’s Plan and other supporting documentation be available, if not already?
• Whether to issue a Letter Before Proceedings to parents.
  
  Note that with pre-birth situations a recent High Court judgment has set out good practice steps to include:

• A risk assessment of the parent(s) should be undertaken immediately the social workers are made aware of the mother’s pregnancy and should be completed 4 weeks before the mother’s expected delivery date and disclosed to the parent(s) (and their advocate where relevant);
• All relevant documentation should be then sent to the States of Guernsey legal advisor to issue proceedings.
  
  
• The action/decisions already taken and where the decisions were made e.g. Strategy Discussion/Meeting, Child Protection Conference, Core Group meeting;
• The proposed Care Plan for the child, including the proposed placement and any cultural, language and ethnic issues, the need for a Parallel Plan, consultation with parents and the wider family, whether any family members are available to care for the child on an interim or permanent basis, if so whether the required checks have been made, the proposals for contact;
• How the proposed Care Plan is to be achieved, including where appropriate arranging a date for the case to be presented to the Fostering and Adoption Panel;
• Whether it may be appropriate to instruct any further expert assessment before the commencement of court proceedings - if so, what are the proposed remit of the instructions and the areas to be addressed, who should the assessment be done by and what are the likely timescales?
• Whether there have there been previous Court proceedings in relation to the family and if so, what steps are required to obtain the papers in relation to the case from the Court? or another Local Authority?
• Timescales for completion of court paperwork; statement, court chronology and care plan.

Legal Planning Meeting minutes will be recorded using the Initial and Review Legal Planning Meeting templates and will be circulated to all attendees.  These are legally privileged and should not be made available to parents or other parties in any potential proceedings without the permission of the chairperson or Head of Service.

The meeting should consider whether further Legal Planning Meetings are necessary and if so, when. It may be that new information emerges which requires a change of plan for the child. In this event, the Legal Planning Meeting must be reconvened in order to consider the implications for the legal plan.