C (A Child)

When choosing between placement within a child’s family and adoption, the court must undertake a global, holistic evaluation of every realistic option. It must identify and compare, side by side, each option’s advantages and disadvantages. Adoption requires particular consideration of its lifelong consequences and is permissible only where it is necessary and nothing else will do.

An appellate court reviewing the proportionality of such an order asks whether the decision was wrong, rather than plainly wrong. A poorly structured judgment need not be set aside if it nevertheless demonstrates sufficient engagement with the long-term welfare choice, the statutory adoption criteria and the proportionality of permanent family separation.

The maternal grandparent of a young child appealed against care and placement orders made by Croydon County Court. The parents could not safely care for the child. The realistic alternatives were adoption by strangers or placement with the grandparent under a special guardianship or related order.

The judge found that the grandparent had significant strengths but could not provide the stable and secure long-term home which the child required. He approved adoption and dispensed with parental consent. The appeal challenged both his factual evaluation and his failure expressly to compare the competing options side by side.

The central questions were whether the judge had conducted the global welfare and proportionality assessment required for adoption, and whether his decision was wrong.

1. Appeal dismissed. McFarlane LJ held that, despite serious deficiencies in the structure of the county court judgment, the judge had sufficiently engaged with the core long-term welfare decision. Floyd and Patten LJJ agreed.

2. Where the realistic choice is between family placement and adoption, the court must conduct a global, holistic and multi-faceted evaluation. It must assess the positives and negatives of every option and compare the options side by side. Merely rejecting the less interventionist options in sequence risks leaving adoption as the default without examining its own disadvantages. The lifelong consequences of adoption and the value of continuing family relationships require substantive consideration, not formulaic references to adoption as draconian or proportionate.

3. Where care and placement applications are considered together, the court should avoid unnecessarily compartmentalising the decisions. Although the welfare checklist in section 1 of the Children Act 1989 applies when considering a care order, a proposed care plan for adoption should also be evaluated through the adoption-focused framework in sections 1 and 52 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002. That approach keeps the ultimate choice between family placement and adoption at the forefront of the decision.

4. The county court judgment was linear and made its comparative evaluation difficult to identify. Nevertheless, its adverse findings concerning the grandparent were justified, long-term findings. They supported the conclusion that she could not provide a sufficiently settled and secure home. The judge also had the child’s lifelong welfare, the statutory adoption factors and the extreme interference with family life in mind. His conclusion that adoption was necessary and proportionate was therefore not wrong.

5. On appellate review of a Convention-compatible welfare decision, the question is whether the proportionality assessment was wrong. The traditional requirement that a discretionary decision be shown to be plainly wrong is inapt. The appellate court conducts a review rather than an entirely fresh determination, but must examine compliance with the court’s obligation to respect article 8 rights.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The appeal was dismissed. The county court’s care and placement orders were upheld because its welfare and proportionality assessment was not wrong, notwithstanding the judgment’s deficient structure.
2. Croydon County Court: His Honour Judge Atkins made a care order, approved a care plan for adoption, dispensed with parental consent and made a placement order. He rejected the maternal grandparent’s proposed family placement.