Impact of the Family Justice Reforms on Front-Line Practice Phase One: The Public Law Outline (2015)
Introduction
The Children and Families Act came into force in April 2014, introducing wide-ranging reforms to the Family Justice System. At the heart of public family law reform was a revised Public Law Outline (PLO), which introduced a 26-week timeframe for completing care proceedings, with the intention of supporting timely decision-making for children and young people. The revised PLO was piloted in phases between July and October 2013.
The measures in the Act supported a shift in local authority practice towards a more thorough pre-proceedings phase, with an increased emphasis on documentation and assessments being completed earlier. The Act also introduced an expectation that evidence produced for the court would be focused, succinct and analytical and that the use of expert evidence in proceedings would be restricted to that which is necessary to resolve the proceedings justly (Department for Education, 2014; Ipsos Mori, 2014).
Professional Standards
PQS:KSS - Lead and govern excellent practice | Designing a system to support effective practice | Developing excellent practitioners | Support effective decision-making | Quality assurance and improvement | Promote and govern excellent practice | Performance management and improvement | Relationships and effective direct work | The law and the family and youth justice systems | The role of supervision
PCF - Rights, justice and economic wellbeing | Knowledge | Critical reflection and analysis | Intervention and skills
Impact of the Family Justice Reforms on Front-Line Practice Phase Two: Special Guardianship Orders (2015)
In recent years there has been an increased use of Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs), with SGOs being used in a wider range of circumstances than was originally intended. This report draws on interviews with professionals in six local authorities. It focuses on changes in local authority and Cafcass professionals' perspectives of how SGOs are being used since the family justice reforms and recent court judgements compared to previously.
Impact of the Family Justice Reforms: Phase 3 - exploring variation across 21 local authorities (2016)
This study builds on two previous research projects that explored the impact of the family justice reforms on frontline practice. The report draws on the views of professionals in 21 local authorities across 15 Local Family Justice Boards. It provides evidence on factors which may contribute to variation in the average care case duration of individual local authorities.