A & B (Children)

Interim removal of children from their family home into foster care is justified only where it is necessary to protect their interests, in the sense that nothing else will do. The court must consider the support available to the family, address all realistically possible options, and analyse the arguments for and against each option. The assessment must be global and holistic, balancing the competing risks of harm rather than proceeding linearly. Coercive powers should not be used merely to provide respite. Where a structured and active programme of social-work support may remedy harmful care, removal may be neither necessary nor proportionate.

The court considered whether two sisters should be removed from the care of their mother and her partner and placed in foster care. The threshold for an interim Part IV order had already been established. The Children’s Guardian supported immediate removal because of alleged emotional harm, domestic abuse, mental ill-health and the obstruction of contact with the fathers. The local authority proposed an interim supervision order with intensive social-work support, therapeutic and life-story work, family intervention and carefully managed contact. The central issue was whether foster placement was necessary and proportionate in light of the competing risks and the support available.

1. Necessity and proportionality. Applying Re B [2013] UKSC 33, substitute care, whether interim or final, is justified only where it is necessary to protect the child’s interests, meaning that nothing else will do. The court had to take account of the assistance and support proposed by the local authority and the Article 8 rights of the children and parents.
2. Evidence and option analysis. The evidence from the local authority and Guardian had to address all realistically possible options and analyse the arguments for and against each. That obligation also fell on the court. The Guardian had allowed troubling but untested new allegations to influence her assessment without sufficiently balancing the countervailing risks of removal.
3. Welfare evaluation. Following Re G (A Child) [2013] EWCA Civ 965, the court undertook a global and holistic evaluation of the available arrangements. Removal would be highly distressing, would interfere seriously with family life, and might damage the prospect of renewed contact with the fathers. Remaining at home involved serious risks, but the evidence did not establish that those risks could not be remedied by active intervention.
4. Outcome on placement. Foster placement was neither necessary nor proportionate at that stage. The court therefore left the children at home and gave the social worker an opportunity to implement the proposed programme, including life-story work, family support, work concerning domestic abuse and mental health, and carefully managed contact with the fathers.
5. Order and contact. An interim supervision order was preferred to an interim care order. Applying Oxfordshire County Council v L (Care or Supervision Order) [1998] 1 FLR 70 and Re W [2013] EWCA 1227, caution was required before imposing an order for which the local authority did not contend. The mothers’ assurances of co-operation justified drawing back from an interim care order, subject to restoration of the proceedings if co-operation failed. Contact between B and the fathers was to proceed incrementally under the social worker’s supervision, with the adults expected to support its success.