In November 2022, the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, demanded that the vast majority of childcare proceedings are concluded within the statutory 26-week deadline. To overcome the level of delay in the system, he outlined a '20-point plan' for family practitioners to follow in all cases from 16th January, to reconnect with the Public Law Outline (PLO).
In early 2023,
Local Government Lawyer conducted a short survey to gain an insight into the experiences of child protection lawyers and their views on the proposed changes, to assess their viability in practice. A report on this survey can be read
here.
Three years on,
Local Government Lawyer is revisiting the topic to assess how successful Sir Andrew’s reforms have been, what problems remain with complying with the 26-week target and whether further reforms are needed.
All questions are optional and the results will be published only in aggregated and anonymised form. We do not ask you to disclose your identity or the authority you work for. However, In order to assist with our analysis of the results, we would be grateful if you could supply the following demographic information.
