Prohibited Steps Order(s)

Prohibited Steps Orders

The Custody Minefield Factsheets – Smartphone Series (optimised for smartphone users). Copyright Michael Robinson

What is a Prohibited Steps Order?
Who can apply for a Prohibited Steps Order?
Are there any situations where a Prohibited Steps Order wouldn’t be granted?
What form would I use, to apply to the courts for a Prohibited Steps Order?
Applying to court
Finding your local family court
Support

What is a Prohibited Steps Order?

Prohibited Steps Orders relate to restricting Parental Responsibility. If a parent has parental responsibility, then he or she has the right independently to take decisions about matters such as schooling, medical treatment, and religion. A Prohibited Steps Order can remove a parent’s right to make such decisions about their child’s life.

This type of order may also be used to prevent a parent from removing their children from the jurisdiction of the Court (England and Wales). In these circumstances, and if you are worried your ex-partner may seek to unlawfully take the children abroad, you should ask for the children’s passports to be seized when you make your application for a Prohibited Steps Order.

Who can apply for a Prohibited Steps Order?

Any parent, guardian or holder of a Residence Order in relation to the children can apply for a Prohibited Steps Order.

Are there any situations where a Prohibited Steps Order wouldn’t be granted?

There is one restriction: the Court cannot make a Prohibited Steps Order where a Residence or Contact Order could address the issues that prompted the application.

As an example, if you were wishing to prevent your ex-partner from having face-to-face contact with your children due to concerns that the children could suffer abuse, you should apply for a Residence Order, and a Contact Order restricting the type of contact to indirect contact.

Prohibited Steps Orders only relate to restricting the exercise of parental responsibility (e.g. medical matters, education, parents taking the children abroad, religious matters etc).

The Court’s willingness to grant the order will depend on the circumstances presented to them and what the Court considers to be in the children’s best interests.

What form would I use, to apply to the courts for a Prohibited Steps Order?

You would use Form C100, which you can download on our Court Forms page.

Applying to court

If you are using a solicitor, they will do this for you. Otherwise, download and complete the Form C100. Print and sign three copies of the form.

Check how much the court fees are, and either take a cheque, postal order or cash for that amount when you go to your local family court.

It will assist both you and the judge if you write a brief ‘Position Statement’. Try to keep the position statement to two to three pages, setting out briefly why you are applying for a prohibited steps order, and why you believe it to be in the children’s best interests. Be factual, and try to be objective in what you write, and the language you use.

A position statement is not essential, but it helps inform the judge, briefly and ideally succinctly, why you are applying for the order, and can assist you in court so you do not forget any points you wish to raise.

Before setting off for the court building, ensure you have with you:

a] Three completed and signed copies of the forms;

b] The cash, cheque or postal order to pay the court fee;

c] Three copies of your Position Statement.

Hand in the court forms, fee and position statement to the court’s administration department.

Finding your local family court

You can use HMCS Court Finder to do this. Once on that website, enter in your region under ‘Court Region Search’. Then make sure that ‘Court Work Type Search’ is set to ‘Family Work’. Then search under ‘Court Type’ and do a search first on ‘Combined Crown and County Court’, then ‘County and Magistrates Court’, and then ‘County Court and District Registry’. Choose the court which is closest to where you or your children live and print the details.

Support

The Custody Minefield offers support forums where you can ask our team of experienced support staff questions about family law, the courts and separation. Collectively, we have answered more than 10,000 posts on other family law related support forums. Visit our Support Forum Page on The Custody Minefield website to find out how to register.

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PAC reports Cafcass 'not fit for purpose'

[London Evening Standard November 11, 2010]

The body responsible for looking after the interests of vulnerable children in the family courts was exposed as "not fit for purpose" in the wake of a large rise in cases following the Baby P tragedy, MPs said today.

Tragic: Baby P - Abused & Torchured until death

Wikio

Children suffered as the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) "failed to get to grips with fundamental weaknesses in its culture, management and performance" following a 34% increase in its caseload, leading to "chaos across the family justice system".

"These problems have been to the detriment of children", the report by the Commons' Public Accounts Committee (PAC) found.

Margaret Hodge, the committee's chairwoman, said: "Cafcass was ill-prepared for the very large increase in care cases in 2009-10 which followed the Baby Peter tragedy and caused chaos in the family justice system.

"This lack of readiness was a direct result of the organisation's continued failure to get to grips with the fundamental weaknesses in its culture, management and performance.

"It is still dealing with a legacy of low morale, unacceptably high levels of sickness absence and under-performance by some staff."

Baby P, now named as Peter Connelly, was 17 months old when he died in Tottenham, north London, at the hands of his mother Tracey Connelly, her violent partner Steven Barker and his brother, Jason Owen, in August 2007.

He suffered more than 50 injuries despite receiving 60 visits from social workers, doctors and police over an eight-month period.

Children and Family Court Advisory Support Services

The case prompted a 34% rise in cases for Cafcass in 2009/10, the MPs found, and the body was only able to respond to the demand through the use of measures "which allowed it to do less work or to delay work on cases".

"Cafcass, as an organisation, is not fit for purpose", the committee said.

While the specific impact of the Baby Peter tragedy was "hard to predict", the possibility of a sustained increase in cases "was a scenario that Cafcass should have planned for".

But "Cafcass did not see the crisis coming, nor did it have a contingency plan in the event of a significant increase in demand", the committee said.

Cafcass has also taken "too long to secure essential changes, and much of the responsibility lies with top management".

"It is shocking that Cafcass has not previously collected all the information it needs to manage its workload more effectively," the committee said.

Low compliance by staff with important requirements was "a persistent problem" which undermined the body's efforts to improve, the MPs added.

There was also a risk that the number of unallocated cases could return to the "unacceptable levels seen in summer 2009".

Cafcass was still not providing a timely service, eight out of 10 Cafcass areas failed Ofsted inspections, and the committee "does not share the Department for Education's confidence that all will be well by 2011", Mrs Hodge said.

"The failure to provide an effective service cannot be blamed solely on the rise in public care cases since 2008," she said.

"Top management must demonstrate and exercise strong and vigorous leadership if Cafcass is to meet the challenges it faces."

The report added: "Cafcass also faces the challenge of dealing with the relentless rise in open cases that is putting pressure on all organisations working in the family justice system.

"Renewed energy and vigour are needed to sort this situation out if Cafcass is to become the world-class organisation it aspires to be."

Cafcass took an average of 27 days to fully allocate a care case to a family court adviser, down from up to 40 days between September 2009 and June 2010, but "still well above what it should be", the report found.

It added that data which Cafcass holds on cases centrally "contains inaccuracies".

And sickness absence was "unacceptably high", with an average of 11.6 days per staff member in 2009-10 and 16.1 days for family court advisers, compared with the public sector average of 8.3 days in 2009.

Cafcass said it had taken "robust action" to improve the service.

Chief executive Anthony Douglas said: "We will take heed of the PAC findings, and we will continue to defend the interests of the 140,000 children who we work with each year, each of whose cases is unique and many of whose lives we improve as a direct result of our involvement."

He went on: "Cafcass is fit for purpose because we have absorbed a massive number of new cases in the last 12 months and have improved our productivity by 17%, which is a performance any organisation would be proud of.

"We have improved on every measure considered by the PAC and the National Audit Office, including falling staff sickness, faster filing times of court reports and quicker allocation of cases."

Related articles

• Fathers' Rights in the United States (parenting-success.com)
• Social services took my children (telegraph.co.uk)
• Cafcass London Making Good Progress (alisonsgypt.wordpress.com)
• CAFCASS: From "Not fit for Purpose" to "beyond reform & must be abolished" (michellelanthony.wordpress.com)

Family courts system accused of hiding evidence from parents - Times Online

Image via WikipediaArticle from Times Online April 29 2009


Family courts system accused of hiding evidence from parents - Times Online

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