Legislation update may 2011

Community Care Inform's legal expert, Ed Mitchell, has updated the legislation on the site. Please see below for a guide to what has changed with links straight through to the relevant part of the statute.

Our legislative digests are now fully integrated with the new Family Procedure Rules 2010, which came into force in April 2011, as well as associated Practice Directions and official Court forms. This allows practitioners to understand the full legal context to their work, both matters of substance and matters of court process. For example:

 

(i) section14A of the guide to the Children Act 1989 is about Special Guardianship Orders.  That section already described the role of a local authority in producing court reports about an applicant for a special guardianship order. Now, the section also includes links to those Family Procedure Rules which deal specifically with filing and disclosure of local authority reports. Further, the section provides access to the official form for making an application for a Special Guardianship Order.

 

(ii) A person's consent is required before s/he is named in a Family Assessment Order under section 16 of the Children Act 1989. The CC Inform guide to section 16 now takes readers to the Family Procedure Rule which sets out how consent is to be obtained.

 

(iii) Section 38 of the Children Act 1989 provides for interim care orders to be made. The CC Inform guide to section 38 now contains links to the special Rule about the giving of evidence in interim care proceedings.

 

(iv) Section 52 of the Adoption & Children Act 2002 contains the law about the giving of, and dispensing with, parental consent in adoption proceedings. The CC Inform guide to section 52 now includes the consent-related provisions of the Family Procedure Rules 2010 as well as: (a) the 2 Practice Directions about recording consent, and (b) the 8 different official forms for recording parental consent in particular types of adoption proceedings.