Care and supervision orders

Procedure

Under the Family Procedure Rules 2010 (FPR 2010), SI 2010/2955, provision is made by FPR 2010, PD 12A (the Public Law Outline (PLO)) for a tightly managed case management system in relation to proceedings under Part IV of the Children Act 1989 (ChA 1989) including:

  1. pre-proceedings checklists

  2. annex documents

  3. advocates' meetings

  4. case management hearings

  5. issues resolution hearings, and

  6. directions

See Practice Note: Public law children procedure—Public Law Outline.

Local authority duties

ChA 1989 provides for local authority social services departments to be responsible for making sure that children are safe and appropriately cared for by their parents or a person looking after them. Local authorities also have a general duty of care to promote the well-being of children in their area and are responsible for investigating any child in their area where they have cause to suspect the child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm.

Typically a local authority may start an investigation where:

  1. it is directed to do so by the court

  2. there is a persistent

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Monumental Supreme Court decision on matrimonialisation and sharing principle (Standish v Standish)

Family analysis: The Supreme Court’s much-anticipated judgment confirms unequivocally that the sharing principle does not apply to non-matrimonial property. Sharing of matrimonial property will usually be 50:50, though there may be a departure from equal division where justified. Non-matrimonial property typically has either a pre-marital origin, or, where it is received during the currency of the marriage, an external source (eg an inheritance). Title to an asset is expressly not determinative as to whether that asset is or is not matrimonial. Though non-matrimonial property may become matrimonial (ie ‘matrimonialisation’) this will depend on how the parties have been dealing with the asset and whether, over time, they have been treating that asset as shared between them. The concept of matrimonialisation is to be applied neither ‘widely’ nor ‘narrowly’ (contrary to what the Court of Appeal had held)—again, the enquiry should focus on how the parties have dealt with the asset. Where an asset is transferred from one spouse to another with the intention to save tax (as had occurred in the case), this will not normally show that the asset is being treated as shared. The Supreme Court ultimately upheld the decision to dismiss the wife’s appeal, though it did not wholly agree with the Court of Appeal’s reasoning. Pursuant to that decision (made on the sharing basis) the wife would be provided with circa £25m of the total assets figure of circa £132.6m, being half of the matrimonial assets figure of £50.48m. David Wilkinson, solicitor at Slater Heelis, considers the judgment.

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