X Council v B & Ors

A local authority should not remain anonymous merely to protect itself or its employees from criticism. The court must ask whether anonymity is necessary to protect the children’s identities. Disclosure of the authority’s name will not ordinarily identify the children by itself. In public law care proceedings, the potentially drastic powers exercised by local authorities create a strong public interest in openness, public scrutiny and accountability. Fear of unlawful or ill-informed criticism is not, without more, a sufficient reason for anonymity. The balance may therefore favour identification, particularly where the authority has been criticised in the judgment. The same public interest may also support identifying authorities whose work merits praise.

The court had previously determined care proceedings concerning the B children and published its judgment subject to a rubric preserving the anonymity of the children, family and local authority. The judgment was reported as X Council v B (Emergency Protection Orders) [2004] EWHC 2015 (Fam), [2005] 1 FLR 341.

The children’s mother later asked the judge to explain why the local authority could not be named. The authority accepted that its identity was already reasonably discernible but opposed lifting anonymity, relying on the risk of misrepresentation, criticism and harm to the children. The central issue was whether the local authority’s name should continue to be anonymised.

1. Disposition. The court treated the mother’s letter as an informal application and amended the rubric to permit identification of the local authority. It declared that nothing in the judgment, any court order or otherwise prohibited identification of Blackpool Council.
2. The court had not granted an injunction. The anonymity resulted only from the publication rubric. The judge proceeded on the assumption, without deciding, that the rubric bound anyone using the judgment.
3. Applying the approach in Re B (A Child) (Disclosure) [2004] EWHC 411 (Fam) and Re X, Barnet LBC v Y and X [2006] 2 FLR 998, the question was whether there was a proper basis for continuing anonymity. There was no need to preserve the authority’s anonymity to protect the children. Naming the authority would not, of itself, identify them.
4. The authority’s real concern was protection from criticism. That concern did not justify anonymity. The powers exercised under Parts IV and V of the Children Act 1989 may have drastic consequences, creating a powerful public interest in public identification and accountability. The freedom of expression principle identified in R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115 reinforced the importance of exposing errors in governance and the administration of justice.
5. The balance clearly favoured identification because the authority had been criticised in the earlier judgment. The judge added that, consistently with the public interest, authorities whose work deserved praise should also be capable of being identified, so that reporting of the family justice system was not distorted.