T (Children: Placement Order)

A placement order may be made even where finding a suitable adoptive family is uncertain. That uncertainty does not establish that adoption is contrary to the child’s best interests.

The application should, however, be adjourned where the child is presently unsuitable for adoption and a planned therapeutic placement may determine whether adoption, rather than long-term fostering, is in the child’s best interests. The general advantages of adoption cannot resolve that question prematurely.

An unresolved choice between adoption and long-term fostering does not necessarily prevent a full care order where the statutory threshold is met, rehabilitation is impossible and local authority care is required whatever the eventual placement.

His Honour Judge Rundell made full care orders and placement orders for two severely disturbed young brothers who could not return to their parents. The local authority proposed adoption but first intended to place the children with specialist therapeutic foster carers for at least six months. That placement would reveal whether the children could form attachments and whether adoption or long-term fostering would best meet their needs.

The father appealed. He argued that the placement orders were premature because the children were not presently suitable for adoption and that interim, rather than full, care orders should have been made. The central issues were whether adoption could already be found to serve the children’s best interests and whether uncertainty about their eventual placement precluded full care orders.

1. The appeal was allowed in part. The placement orders were set aside and the applications for them adjourned. The full care orders remained in force. Thorpe LJ agreed with Hughes LJ.

2. A placement order is not precluded merely because an adoptive placement may be difficult to find. The court must treat the child’s welfare as paramount under section 1 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. Where adoption has been determined to be the best outcome, uncertainty about whether a suitable family will be found ordinarily provides no reason to deprive the child of that opportunity. A placement order can, and will often, be made with a care order approving an adoption plan even though further investigation and preparation remain necessary.

3. This case involved a materially different uncertainty. The children were presently unsuitable for adoptive placement. The proposed specialist foster placement was needed to determine both whether adoption was achievable and whether it was preferable to long-term fostering. The therapeutic work might show that their needs required foster carers with continuing local authority support. The general advantages of adoption therefore did not establish that adoption was already in their best interests.

4. The judge had also been required to weigh the placement order’s potentially near-conclusive consequences for the parents. Statutory restrictions would significantly limit later opposition to adoption, revocation proceedings and applications for other orders. Those consequences would yield to a clear welfare requirement, but no such requirement could yet be established. Administrative certainty, flexibility and the avoidance of further proceedings could not cure that deficiency.

5. The written care plans should have stated the contingency of long-term fostering if adoption failed or proved impossible. Care plans have statutory significance under section 31A of the Children Act 1989 and should accurately record the plan governing future reviews. The omission was curable and did not justify withholding care orders.

6. Full care orders were required because the threshold criteria were admitted, the children could not return home and local authority care was necessary whatever the therapeutic placement ultimately demonstrated. The possibility of an autistic condition did not affect the orders because the children’s difficulties, the parents’ inability to cope and the proposed plans remained unchanged.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): By [2008] EWCA Civ 248, allowed the father’s appeal to the extent of setting aside the placement orders and adjourning those applications. It upheld the full care orders.
• High Court, Worcester District Registry: His Honour Judge Rundell made full care orders and placement orders for both children. No citation is stated.