H (Final Care Orders at IRH), Re

An Issues Resolution Hearing may determine a care application finally only where the procedure is fair, the necessary evidence is available, and any material factual dispute has been properly resolved. Robust case management and the statutory concern to avoid delay do not justify summary final orders that deny parents a fair opportunity to challenge evidence capable of affecting the outcome.

Where contested final care orders are made at an IRH, the judgment must clearly explain both why final determination at that stage is justified and why the substantive welfare decision is necessary and proportionate. It must address the welfare checklist, permanence and contact arrangements, realistic future options, and material risks.

Care proceedings concerning three boys had continued for 128 weeks. At a 45-minute IRH, the Family Court at Chelmsford made final care orders for Y and N without hearing oral evidence. The father, supported by the mother, sought a focused final hearing so that he could establish claimed sobriety and challenge the local authority's plans for placement and substantially reduced family contact.

The proposed long-term family placements were not fully assessed. Further sexual-risk work concerning N's prospective carers and DBS checks concerning Y's prospective carers remained outstanding. The father appealed the final care orders, contending that the IRH procedure and the judge's reasons were inadequate.

1. Appeal allowed. The final care orders for Y and N were set aside. Interim care orders were substituted and the care applications were remitted urgently to the Family Court.

2. An IRH may be used as a final hearing in an appropriate case, but this is subject to procedural fairness and the necessary evidence being before the court. The court applied the guidance in Re J, [2017] EWCA Civ 398, and Re S-W, [2015] 2 FLR 136. The father had a material factual case to try: whether his claimed abstinence and recovery altered the future risk and could affect the children’s care. He was entitled to challenge the social worker’s contrary view.

3. The local authority’s late change of position, the inadequate listing time, and the incomplete assessments made summary termination unfair. The outstanding sexual-risk assessment and DBS checks could affect the long-term plans. The judge also needed to address the contingency plan of adoption before approving final care plans.

4. The reasons were inadequate. A contested final decision at an IRH required clear reasons for using that hearing as a final hearing and for each substantive order. Those reasons had to address the threshold criteria, realistic future options, permanence arrangements, the welfare checklist in Children Act 1989, and contact. The judge’s misunderstanding of the period for which N had lived with his father was materially serious. Her emphasis on delay displaced essential welfare considerations, including risk, the children’s wishes and feelings, the prospective carers’ abilities, sibling separation, and the proposed reduction in family contact.

5. A short, focused final hearing could instead have determined future risk, the completed special guardianship assessments, and appropriate parent-child and sibling contact. The court expressed no concluded view on whether care orders intended to precede special guardianship orders would otherwise have been proper.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): Allowed the father’s appeal, set aside the final care orders for Y and N, substituted interim care orders, and remitted the applications for urgent case management.
• Family Court sitting at Chelmsford: HHJ Shanks made final care orders for Y and N at an Issues Resolution Hearing on 24 June 2025. Those orders were set aside on appeal.