Care Proceedings: Exploring the Relationship Between Case Duration and Achieving Permanency for the Child

The 1989 Children Act in England and Wales and the derivative1995 Children (NI) Order in Northern Ireland provide the legislativeframework within which issues pertaining to the care and supervisionof children that come before the Courts are examined. Both piecesof legislation were intended to address a number of problemswith the way that such issues were dealt with by the Court,particularly the tendency for proceedings to become protractedand for children to ‘drift’ in care as a consequence.The imposition of the ‘No Delay’ principle in bothjurisdictions was designed specifically to address these concerns.However, since the introduction of both the 1989 Children Act(implemented in October 1991) and the 1995 Children (NI) Order(implemented in November 1996), there has been a steady increasein the average duration of proceedings and concerns remain aboutthe impact that this may be having upon the children involved.This paper presents the findings of a research study (McSherry et al., 2004)that explored the complex relationship between the durationof care proceedings and costs to children in terms of the likelihoodof achieving permanency.