Leicester City Council v The Mother & Anor

In children proceedings, a potential placement with a natural family member is not subject to an automatic presumption or right. The court must determine the child’s welfare throughout life by a proportionate, global and holistic evaluation of all realistic options.

A family placement may be a viable option without being the preferred outcome. The court must weigh its advantages against the consequences of delay, including the child’s need for timely permanence and stable attachment. Where an overseas assessment cannot be completed within the child’s timescale, the court may revoke the assessment direction and direct that proceedings move promptly towards final orders.

The local authority sought a care order for A, a seven-month-old child who had been in care since birth. The only family member to put herself forward as a long-term carer was the maternal aunt, who lived in Switzerland.

Attempts to arrange an assessment through Child and Families Across Borders and the Swiss authorities had been substantially delayed. A legally effective assessment had to be undertaken by the competent Swiss authorities and was expected to take six to nine months, with no certain commencement date.

The issue was whether the direction for assessment should be discharged because the further delay would be inconsistent with A’s welfare and timescales.

1. Assessment and case management. The court’s control of expert evidence and assessment is governed by Children and Families Act 2014, s.13, including the welfare and timetable factors in s.13(7). A direction for assessment is a case-management direction which may be revoked under Family Procedure Rules 2010, r.4.1(7). The timetable must be set without delay and the impact of any extension on the child must be considered.
2. No natural-family presumption. There is no automatic right or presumption that a child should be brought up by a natural parent or family member in public-law adoption proceedings. The governing principle is paramount consideration of the child’s welfare throughout life, assessed proportionately and compatibly with engaged ECHR art.8 rights. If rights conflict, the child’s rights prevail.
3. Evaluation of options. The existence of a viable family home makes that option a serious possibility, but does not make it the outcome. The court must undertake a global and holistic evaluation of each realistic option, considering its positive and negative features in sufficient detail and comparing the options side by side. The necessity and proportionality of adoption or another permanent plan can be assessed only after that exercise.
4. Delay and overseas assessment. The desirability of exploring an extended-family placement is not weakened by geography, but the option must be evaluated against the child’s timescale. Avoidance of delay and the opportunity for family placement are competing principles of importance. Where the obstacles to an overseas assessment create prolonged and uncertain delay, pursuing the assessment may become inconsistent with the child’s welfare.
5. Disposition. A further delay of at least nine months, with no certainty of a positive assessment or eventual placement, would materially postpone A’s permanent placement and complicate attachment and bonding. It was therefore in A’s best interests to discharge the assessment direction and progress the proceedings speedily towards final orders.

First-instance decision. No appellate history was stated in the judgment.