A-Z v Birmingham City Council

On an application to discharge a care order, the court may summarily dismiss the application after appropriate enquiry where it has no realistic prospect of success and pursuing it may unsettle the child and harm the child’s welfare. The court may adopt a robust and direct approach where the evidence clearly establishes that the child is thriving in a stable placement and does not wish to leave it. An application concerning a child subject to a placement order may be treated according to its substance, even where it is technically misdescribed as an application to discharge a care order, but it will fail where there is no realistic prospect of the placement being set aside.

The father applied to discharge care orders made in respect of five older children and a further order concerning his youngest child. The five older children had lived together in the same foster placement for nearly four years, were thriving there and did not wish to return to their father. The youngest child had lived continuously with a separate family since birth, and that family had begun adoption proceedings.

The evidence included statements from the local authority and an independent report from the children’s guardian. The central issues were whether the applications concerning the older children should be summarily dismissed for want of any prospect of success, and how the application concerning the youngest child should be treated given that the order in force was a placement order rather than a care order.

1. The applications concerning the five older children were summarily dismissed. Following appropriate enquiry, the evidence showed that they had lived together continuously in a settled foster placement for nearly four years, were thriving there, and did not wish to leave. There was no realistic prospect of the care orders being discharged.
2. The court has the power, and in appropriate circumstances the duty, to dismiss summarily an application which has no prospect of success where pursuing it may unsettle the children and thereby harm their welfare.
3. The application concerning the youngest child was technically misconceived because the order in force was a placement order, not a care order. The child remained technically a foster child, although living continuously with the family seeking to adopt him.
4. The court could, if necessary, treat the application according to its substance as an application to set aside the placement order. On that basis it was equally hopeless. The child had known no other family, was securely and settledly placed, and there was no realistic possibility of his being removed to live with the father.
5. The application was summarily dismissed in its entirety.