CM v Blackburn With Darwen Borough Council

A placement order requires a structured welfare and proportionality evaluation. The court must analyse each realistic option, compare its benefits and detriments, decide which option best safeguards the child’s lifelong welfare, and determine whether dispensing with parental consent is proportionate.

“Nothing else will do” describes the conclusion of that reasoning. It is neither a new statutory test nor a presumption against non-consensual adoption.

A time-limited contingency plan, including a dual search for adopters and long-term foster carers, does not undermine an unconditional decision that adoption is required. It is permissible where it recognises the possible failure of the primary adoption plan, rather than treating long-term fostering as an equally suitable welfare outcome.

The county court dispensed with the mother’s consent to the placement for adoption of M, then aged four, and made a placement order. The mother accepted that she could not care for M within a timescale compatible with her welfare. No member of the birth family was available to provide care.

The judge compared adoption with long-term fostering. She held that adoption was overwhelmingly preferable because of M’s need for security, permanence and stability. The local authority’s care plan proposed a six-month search for adopters, followed by a concurrent search for adopters and long-term foster carers if necessary.

The mother appealed. The central issue was whether a placement order could lawfully be made where the care plan contained that form of dual planning.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court unanimously upheld the placement order. The county judge had correctly concluded, following a careful comparative welfare and proportionality evaluation, that adoption was required for M’s welfare.

2. The statutory test under the Adoption and Children Act 2002 had not been altered by [2013] UKSC 33 or [2013] EWCA Civ 1146. “Nothing else will do” is not a distinct standard of proof or a presumption against adoption. It is the conclusion reached after deductive reasoning on the realistic options and a proportionality evaluation.

3. The court identified a five-part exercise. It must analyse the welfare consequences of every realistic option, including the respective benefits and detriments; compare those analyses; decide which option best safeguards the child’s welfare throughout life; apply the statutory question whether consent should be dispensed with; and test that conclusion for proportionality.

4. There was no objection in principle to dual planning, consistently with [2008] EWCA Civ 535. A contingency recognising that an adoptive search may fail does not mean that long-term fostering is an equally suitable option. Here adoption was the unqualified welfare decision. The possible later search for foster carers responded to the risk that an adoptive placement might not be achieved without unacceptable delay.

5. The case differed from one in which the adoption decision depends upon a future event or process, or where purported conditions make the placement decision conditional. Mere uncertainty about whether or when suitable adopters will be found concerns implementation, not whether adoption is required.

6. The court also confirmed that it has no jurisdiction to prescribe a timetable for the local authority’s placement search after a substantive order. The prescribed content of a care plan does not require such a timetable. If adoption cannot be implemented, the local authority should consider the matter in its review processes and ultimately return to court to revoke the placement order.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division) — dismissed the mother’s appeal and upheld the placement order: [2014] EWCA Civ 1479.
• Preston County Court — Her Honour Judge Singleton QC, on 14 March 2013, dispensed with the mother’s consent and made a placement order for M.