27.03.09: Article by Guy Platt-Higgins, Director re : Care proceedings costs

We deal with numerous care proceedings matters and our solicitor clients who handle such matters spend a great deal of time ensuring that the cases are run efficiently.

 

Care proceedings are fraught with difficulty and as such cases are inherently sensitive, it is vital that only the most experienced of solicitors should handle the matter.

 

In the past couple of years we have seen the number of care proceedings that we are instructed to cost dip quite dramatically but more recently the number of incoming cases has escalated.

 

The explanation for the reduction and subsequent escalation in files received is possibly inexplicable but there are some controversial circumstances that might explain the trends :

 

Firstly, it was leaked in the press some time ago that some local authorities had to meet targets for fostering children. As a result of an inability to meet those target levels, local authorities were reportedly seeking to secure care orders more pro-actively than before. Whilst this would appear highly controversial we did not see any cases which did not appear to warrant local authority intervention.

 

Secondly, the Court issue fee which local authorities had to pay for care proceedings increased by a factor of 32. In our view, this resulted in less care proceedings as local authority budgets could not sustain such levels of cost. It is perhaps a consequence of the Court fee increase that fewer care proceedings were issued as we certainly witnessed a drop in the number of such cases thereafter.

 

Thirdly, the "Baby P" case was a tragic and highly publicised case wherein the local authority involved was heavily criticised for its failure intervene. Rightly or wrongly in that case, we subsequently have seen a substantial increase in the number of care proceedings cases that we receive. It would appear that this unfortunate case resulted in local authorities tightening up their procedures and putting the interest of children before their budget concerns.

 

It is now on the Governments agenda to abolish the issue fee in care proceedings and therefore we would hope that it will follow that care proceedings will be issued when they need to be without a local authority being afraid of breaching their budgets.

 

Solicitors who handle care proceedings cases are in our view under-remunerated. There is discussion about fixing fees and reducing solicitors allowances even further. This is likely to result in yet another unwelcome financially related trend ie fewer experienced solicitors will undertake the work and consequently, the interests of the children will be adversely affected.

 

Part 1 of the Children Act is explicit about the overriding objective. However, that will be completely overlooked in the event that more and more solicitors are pushed out of the care proceedings area of law because of Government attempts to fix and reduce practitioners fees.