pre proceedings and plo guidance september 2019...pre proceedings and plo guidance september 2019 ....

AP Action Plan of 14 Date: 09.01.2019

Pre Proceedings and PLO Guidance

September 2019


Preamble 1. This guidance sets out local approaches to the statutory guidance Court Orders and Pre

Proceedings April 2014 and the Public Law Outline 2014 . It takes into account the Interim Report of the Family Justice Public Law working group of 3rd July 2019 and is available in the Trust’s policies and procedures store in Tri.x.

2. The guidance is aimed at improving effective management oversight and progression of cases.

This provides a framework for effective tracking and reporting of pre-proceedings work in line with the Trust Development Plan Strategic Priority 2.

3. The guidance replaces the previous Pre Proceedings and Court Work Protocol between Trust

Social Work and Legal Staff. 4. The guidance sets out the responsibilities for uploading decisions and case tracking and

replaces the previous care first guidance. Tracking responsibility is set out in each section.

5. Other agencies, in particular the courts have said that pre proceedings should be more effective at the point of issue of proceedings stating that there is:

Lack of clarity about issues

Insufficient investigation

Connected persons options not sufficiently explored

Analysis and judgements flawed/disproportionate

This guidance along with a strengthened case progression role, stronger management oversight and quality assurance, improved resources and improved access to skills and knowledge, aims to improve performance and change these perceptions.

Key points from the Statutory guidance Court Orders and Pre Proceedings 2014 and the Interim Report of Public Law Working Group July 2019 The Statutory Guidance

6. Chapter 2 paragraphs 2 and 3

The guidance in this chapter highlights the requirement that local authorities work closely with families to ensure that key steps are taken to help parents address problems in a timely way. Where a child cannot remain living with his or her parents, the local authority should identify and prioritise suitable family and friends placements, if appropriate. Where possible, this identification should take place before care proceedings are issued, as it may avoid the need for proceedings.

Where a decision is taken by the local authority that parenting cannot be improved within the child’s timescale and that the ‘threshold’

for care proceedings has been met in principle, it should determine whether to bring proceedings as quickly as possible. This decision should be informed by engagement with other relevant agencies.


7. Chapter 2 Para 25

When parenting is not improving enough to protect the child from significant harm, the local authority should hold a legal planning meeting to obtain legal advice about a particular case. This should be attended by the child’s social worker, relevant social work managers, and the local authority lawyer. At the meeting, a decision should be made in principle about whether the threshold criteria has been met. The local authority should then decide, based on a robust analysis of the level of assessed risk, 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 meeting should also identify any evidence gaps, clarify whether additional assessments will be required, and consider what would be a suitable draft care plan for the child.

8. Chapter 2 para 28

Proceedings can be avoided if parents are able to demonstrate their capability to safeguard the child by working with relevant services to improve their parenting capability and/or agreeing to a protective placement for the child, with relatives or under section 20.

The Public Law Working Group some key points July 2019

9. LA Decision Making -there has been a tilt away from positive strengths-based practice and a move towards a rigid interpretation of threshold and an assumption that if threshold is met the most draconian action is required (point 37)

10. It would be helpful to ensure responsibility for escalating cases towards the courts lies with experienced local authority managers (point 38)

11. The role of legal advisers should be defined with an emphasis on the need to work towards staying out of court. The legal adviser should not purely be there to identify threshold but should assist in identifying the key issues and then what work is required. The role of legal advisers should shift from an emphasis on whether threshold is met to a wider question: if threshold is met, how do we then support the family to come back from that position? The legal planning meeting should be used to address the following key questions: what support is needed? who are the “safe” people? where might alternative and supportive carers from within the family come from? what will the impact on the child be not just now but in the future? (point 50)

12. All options should be aired and at each stage all alternatives must be exhausted before the next steps towards court are taken. This type of balancing should be akin to that undertaken within a Re B-S analysis. (point 51)

13. Best Practice Guidance for pre proceedings at Appendices C & D of the report have been considered and key points included.

14. Throughout the steps of local authority decision-making the fact that the legal threshold has been met does not mean it is necessarily right or necessary to arrange a legal gateway meeting, proceed to pre-proceedings or instigate care proceedings. (App C Para 2)


Birmingham Children’s Trust Approach to Decision Making and Pre Proceedings

15. Early Involvement of “relationship lawyers” through Legal Clinics

The purpose is to provide social workers/ team managers with improved access to legal advice.

These clinics are not designed to replace complex case discussions or Legal Planning Meetings (LPM), they are to be utilised for advice about:

the detail of a particular matter if there is uncertainty

advice on private law matters

any concerns about the progress of a case already before the Court

consultation if there is a difference of opinion

clarification needed regarding the actions required

understanding a court judgement and direction

This list is not exhaustive and a decision to seek legal advice will be at the discretion of the relevant Head of Service.(HoS)

16. Process

Legal Clinics will take place on the same day as area LPMs.

The nominated Senior Lawyer for each area will attend the Legal Clinic.

To access this service, social workers and team managers should consult with their Head of Service to determine whether legal advice is needed.

The Head of Service will then formulate a draft agenda and send to the Lawyer lead.

Following the clinic the Lawyer will write a brief note to the Team Manager to set out the discussion and recommendations within 24 hours.

*Tracking - The Team Manager is to record this decision onto the case record within 24 hours.

17. First Step to LPM – Head of Service discussion

Early decision making is made by a Head of Service in line with guidance.


Where the parenting is not seen to be improving sufficiently to protect a child from significant harm then initially a case discussion must take place between the Social Worker, Team Manager and HoS to consider the seriousness of the harm and whether the test for interim removal has been met, proportionality, and the work on the case at that point including gaps in the evidence/assessment . These discussions and the process below should also take place where a court has ordered a Section 37 Report in private law cases and a care application is being proposed.

Legal briefing notes are available on the key issues of

Proportionality and thresholds

Interim removal

Use of Section 20

Contacting family members where parental consent not available

The Right Service Right time guidance should be specifically referenced in discussions.

The Practice Hub and with support from the legal team have put in place a toolkit of key resources for evidence based practice which should be used throughout the analysis and decision making process. The interim guidance key points should be considered

What are the concerns of the local authority and other relevant agencies?

How do these affect the child?

How is the wellbeing of the child impaired by the concerns?

Has an FGC or equivalent been held to consider the concerns of the local authority, as well as the family’s views and any support needs?

Does the arising plan need amending?

Does it fully incorporate working in partnership with the family?

If not, steps consider re-convening before the decision to initiate the pre-proceedings process;

Have any changes been made within the family to address those concerns?

What support services have been offered to the family?

How has the family engaged with support services and what has been the impact / outcome?

Is the local authority’s position that the concerns remain high and is there a possibility that care proceedings will be issued?

To make sure that the discussion is effective in advance of this discussion, the Social Worker should provide:

A genogram –to include grandparents with their siblings and partners and paternal family/s

An up to date Chronology,

Any completed family assessment, including evidence of attempts to engage father/s if not part of household and other family members

Analysis of the capacity for change, with explicit reference to the Cycle of Change


Following the case discussion the HoS will agree either:-

Progress to LPM and/or further work which could include Family Group Conference, family meeting, viability assessment, any specialist assessment. If serious and proportionate immediate issue or other emergency action

*Tracking – HoS to record and upload the decision within 48 hours

18. The Process for arranging Legal Planning Meetings

If the HOS is agrees to a LPM, the team manager should liaise with the legal team. The legal team will make the arrangements for the meeting at one of the regular area surgeries

19. Expected accompanying information:

Up to date Chronology

Genogram

Birth certificate (obtained with parental permission)

Assessments

The most recent child protection plan and minutes

Any relevant reports from other agencies

Record of HOS discussion

Any previous expert assessments or judgements if there were previous proceedings

For the avoidance of doubt the document in use since 2011 LPM referral form is no longer to be used in this process. These documents are sent to to the Legal Panel Administrator (within the Legal Team) to inbox [email protected] at least 3 days before LPM surgery or if urgent immediately On receipt by the legal team the case is opened on the Legal Team case management system to the lawyer who will attend the LPM surgery.

The Legal Team Administrator will liaise with the area business support team to finalise and circulate dates and times of the LPMs for the particular surgery.

NB If care proceedings have been issued in an emergency without having been presented to LPM,

the allocated Social Worker and Team Manager must provide an update at the next scheduled

LPM surgery to allow for scrutiny of the proposed care plan and assessments prior to the Court

Case Management Hearing;

mailto:[email protected]


20. Frequency of LPMs

From September 2019 LPM surgeries will move from fortnightly to weekly to reduce the numbers of urgent LPM’s and to reduce and spread the workload which arises through the fortnightly approach. These take place at the three area offices Lifford House (South) Sutton New Road (East) and New Aston House (North West Central) Where an emergency decision has been made without a LPM, there must always be a discussion with legal and the decision making and rationale to issue should be clearly recorded on the child’s electronic file. The case must then be reviewed at the next scheduled LPM Surgery.

Each meeting is given a 30 minute timeslot although it is understood that in more complex cases more time may be required.

21. Compliance

If documentation is not provided the LPM may need to be rescheduled or cancelled and a notification will be sent to the Team Manager and / or HoS for further action.

The Team Manager and social worker will attend at their allocated time on the agenda with a

clear evidenced plan of what is required and what decision is being sought from the LPM;

22. Urgent LPMs The HoS may decide to seek an urgent LPM where an emergency has arisen. If the case is already allocated then if possible contact should be made with the allocated lawyer to set up the meeting. Otherwise urgent contact should be made with the Legal Team administrator who will open a file, receive available documents and set up the meeting if necessary by telephone.

The Legal Planning Meeting 23. Purpose

LPMs must take place before a final decision is made on whether the threshold is met for care proceedings in line with statutory guidance and will consider.

Is threshold met to initiate care proceedings – is the evidence serious enough to justify this. Gaps in evidence.


Whether proceedings should be initiated immediately and whether the test for interim removal is met.

The judgment on capacity to change and 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.

The need for specialist assessment

Whether the provision of support can remove the need for proceedings or put another way can the parents provide good enough care with support.

Alternative family care and how to support the care of children within their families and communities where this is still a viable and safe option taking into account proportionality.

Other complex legal issues for example international issues, Section 20 use, designated LA, Dols, CSE etc.;

The best use of resources and that accommodation, is used only to safeguard children at risk of harm.

Whether is it safe and appropriate to divert the case away from care proceedings key points being acceptance of issues and agreement by all with the benefit of advice with the alternative route proposed.

The care plan and contact.

Helping to promote early permanence decisions for children – setting a timetable.

Ensuring full consideration is given to the child’s voice, their ethnicity, culture and disability when planning for their permanence

24. Attendance:

Chair – The area Head of Service or a Head of Service from another area ;

The Case Progression Officer for the area;

A Senior Lawyer from the Trust legal team

Social worker and team manager

Adoption or Fostering representative where applicable

Observer by invitation

25. The Meeting

The meeting is chaired by the HOS

The case is presented by the social worker and TM who take questions from HOS and lawyer


The Trust Lawyer will make a note of the discussion and provide a written advice on the agreed template.

Following discussion and advice from legal the HOS will decide whether threshold is met and make the decision on:

Step down

Further period of work with family

Issue proceedings

Where the decision is to undertake further work with the family with legal advice – pre proceedings assessment support phase -the timetable will be set at the meeting.

The Trust Lawyer will provide the advice to the meeting within 48 hours of the meeting and upload the advice to Eclipse.

Where the decision is made to initiate a pre proceedings assessment support phase or to issue proccedings, the case will be allocated to an alternative lawyer in the Legal Team and the team manager and social worker will be informed of the allocation

If threshold is not met the Legal Team will close the case. The Court Resource Panel process which was put in place in July 2018 to scrutinise and achieve consistency has now served its purpose and will no longer be a required step once this guidance has come into force.

*Tracking – The Legal Administrator will enter the LPM event in Eclipse

26. Templates and Guidance for next steps

The Practice Hub, Tri.x and Eclipse team have worked with the Legal Team and the documents formerly available in care first docs have been reviewed. Obsolete or guidance documents have been deleted or placed on triex and documents of use have been updated.

The Legal Team and Practice Hub have agreed a set of local template documents which are available through Eclipse

These are:

The letter of issue

Pre proceedings letter

Consent to disclosure of information form

Template letters to agencies

Letter to Kinship carers

Pre proceedings letter to expert to be completed with Trust lawyer.

Pre proceedings agenda

Assessment and support planning tool


Note that the previous practice of providing a list of Lawyers should no longer be followed as this quickly becomes obsolete and families should be referred to the Law Society find a Lawyer pages

27. Immediate issue of care proceedings

The HoS will set timescales for sending the letter of Intent to issue proceedings, evidence

preparation, enquiries regarding experts, liaison with the relevant team regarding case transfer

as necessary the care plan and a final date by which the application should be made.

The case will be allocated to a lawyer and opened as a care case on the Legal Team case

management system

28. Pre Proceedings – The Assessment and Support Phase - Further work and support for the

family to avoid or divert from proceedings see also “Appendix D” guidance

Extracts from Appendix D guidance

The fundamental purpose of the pre-proceedings process is not purely one of assessment, but

also to create another opportunity to work closely with families by addressing their recognised

needs, to identify and provide support, including the support of the wider family, attempting to

negate the need to issue proceedings.

Care proceedings are the option of last resort, but by working to an appropriate standard under

the PLO professionals will also ensure that if it becomes necessary to issue proceedings the court

will have the evidence base needed to make a timely and properly informed decision to provide

for the statutory protection of a child.

Core Principles a. The overriding consideration is the welfare of the child b. Working in partnership with families with an aim of bringing about improvement and change and to avoid the need for care proceedings is key c. Understanding the needs and strengths of children, their parents and their wider families is essential d. This is an assessment and support phase and not a procedural step to issuing proceedings e. Proceedings are an option of last resort if no other intervention protects the outcomes for children. f. Each decision-making stage of this phase should be the subject of regular review and oversight by a senior manager (or person nominated by the senior manager) g. Unnecessary delay is to be avoided, and the timeliness of the implementation of any plan of support or assessment of a family needs to be monitored h. Work should be conducted to the same standards of fairness, transparency, and respect as if it were being conducted


subject to the scrutiny of the court process I. Access to professional support, including expert legal advice,is essential for professionals and families alike

Where there is to be a pre proceedings assessed and support period the HOS will set timescales

for sending the Pre Proceedings Letter and the date for the initial meeting and set a review date

for the Team Manager and Social Worker to return to LPM to provide an update and

confirmation that the plan is progressing within given timescales;

The BCT Legal Team lawyer allocated to the case is expected to attend pre proceedings meetings

subject to overall Legal Team capacity. This may by phone or through MS Teams where this

would be more efficient.

The process is:

Within 10 days first meeting with family and their lawyers

The meeting is attended by the Team Manager, Social Worker, BCT Lawyer, parents and their

lawyers.

An agenda for the meeting is available

A draft assessment plan and plan and plan for intervention and support must be put in place.

The agreed plan from the meeting should be sent to parents and lawyers within 3 days of the

meeting.

The meeting should identify family and friends with a view to approaching them about caring for

the children if parents cannot change within the children’s timescales.

The Legal Team has provided a briefing on the issue of approaching and disclosing information

to family members when parents are not willing to consent or withhold information on family

carers.

The meeting should set a review date no more than 6 weeks from the date of first meeting to

check progress, adjust plans and support and check whether work with the family outside

proceedings continues to be safe

Records of what was proposed, what has happened and what the outcomes are must be kept. A

template document is available

A final review meeting should take place no later than 12 weeks from the first meeting. Before

the meeting a care planning meeting should take place with the Trust Lawyer to review the

evidence, acceptance of issues, capacity to change and proportionality of intervention. The trust

lawyer should provide advice at this meeting to inform the decision of the HoS whether to:

Step down

Divert to family care/private proceedings

Issue of care proceedings


Immediate notification must be sent to the Placements Team or access to resource Panel

regarding any financial decisions around proposed placements.

*Tracking – the Team Manager will update eclipse with the outcome of the final review.

29. Issuing Care Proceedings

This guidance does not set out full advice on the Issue of care proceedings which can be read in

triex and the guidance preparing care supervision proceedings 2013 and changes coming in

through the further Public Law Review changes 2019/20

Template documents are available in Eclipse

Practice changes now agreed are:

Social workers will no longer complete the application form C110a which will be completed by

the Legal Team from the information provided by the Social Work team in the social work

statement and documents

This is in preparation for the move to digital applications to court which is due to start in 2020.

The Legal Team will provide a separate schedule of findings document and will not include this in

the application

The social work chronology is not to be included in the statement but will be a separate

document.

A separate care plan will be prepared by the social work team.

Where there has been an assessment and support phase the assessment and intervention plans

recordings and outcomes will be filed with the application

The Social Work team should comply with the page limits set out in the Court Bundles Practice

Direction 27a

Chronology 10 pages

Statement 25 pages

Care Plan 10 pages

*Tracking – the Legal Team administrator will enter tracking details of when care proceedings

are issued, completed and the outcome in Eclipse

30. Expectations when a case is before the court

The allocated social worker should be on time to attend court and give instructions in pre

hearing discussions and have diary commitments available to make sure the case can be

timetabled around these


Team managers should attend to support social workers who are inexperienced or where

complex issues are likely to come up.

Lawyers will keep social workers informed of who will be representing the Trust.

Following hearings the Lawyer should create a case plan. All dates for evidence and hearings

should be diarised by both the social worker and lawyer. The Lawyer should send calendar

invitations for hearing dates

Post court the Lawyer will provide an attendance note, the order and the updated case plan.

The lawyer and social worker should include a care planning meeting in the case plan at the

point when parenting and kinship assessments are concluded so that legal advice is available for

social work decision making.

31. Dispute resolution

Dispute Resolution; there may be occasions when there will be professional differences either by

our internal or external partners about the outcome decisions made by LPMs. In these

circumstances, the chair must receive in writing within 2 working days of panel a rationale and

challenge to panel. This will then be considered by the chair who will respond within 2 working

days of receiving. If the matter remains unresolved then the Area Assistant Director will be

notified and they will be required to make a final decision.

32. Administration and Information Governance

The Case Progression Officer will be responsible for tracking and monitoring cases and ensure cases return to LPM for updates and review.

The HOS will ensure decisions and actions are recorded on to the case file within 24 hours unless they are actions allocated to the Legal Team

33. Other reporting and quality assurance functions of the Pre Proceedings and LPM process

Ensures senior management oversight of cases

Case progression officer to keep an overview

The plan is to regularly review cases at the weekly surgery at six weekly intervals to avoid delay and ensure on track.

Promote the care of children by their families and identify blockages to the early identification of primary carers and identification and assessment of non-resident parents and family and friends carers;

Liaise with the BCT Practice Hub on examples of good practice and or where practice and multi-agency working needs to be improved;

Keep an overview that assessments and interventions are evidence based and robust and engage families to prevent issues escalating and reduce the likelihood of care proceedings being issued;


Keep an overview safeguarding measures are put in place and reviewed when PLO and or Care Proceedings are issued.

Case progression officer and HOS to analyse patterns and trends in order to ensure best practice; inform commissioning intentions and trigger responses from relevant service areas and partner agencies regarding identified practice concerns;

34. Legal Team Contact Information

For urgent advice during 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday, contact the duty Lawyer on: 0121 464 3096. For urgent advice and representation out of office hours, contact the legal team on: 07833 059425. For general non-urgent advice, you must get approval from your HoS before contacting us. If your HoS has approved your enquiry, contact the legal team via email at: [email protected] LPMs

To arrange a LPM as part of the pre-proceedings process request should be sent to: [email protected]

pre proceedings and plo guidance september 2019...pre proceedings and plo guidance september 2019 ....

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