1.5.3 Legal Gateway Panel Meetings Procedures |
AMENDMENT
This chapter was updated in November 2016 to reflect the outcome of a judgment following an application to remove a child at birth. The judge set out what were thought to be ‘basic and good practice steps’ (see Section 1, Purpose of Legal Gateway Panel Meetings).
Contents
- Purpose of Legal Gateway Panel Meetings
- Who can Convene Legal Gateway Meetings
- Attendance at Legal Gateway Meetings
- Timing and Duration of Legal Gateway Panel
- Recording of Legal Gateway Meetings
- Subsequent Legal Gateway Meetings
- PLO Monitoring / Review Legal Gateway Meetings
1. Purpose of Legal Gateway Panel Meetings
When there is concern that the protection or welfare of a child cannot be achieved by agreement with the parents or the security of a legal order may be necessary to ensure the viability of a plan for a child or the existing court order is not providing adequate protection for the child or is no longer required, a Legal Gateway Meeting should be convened. Importantly, Gateway Meetings should consider alternative resolutions that avoid the need to instigate proceedings.
A Legal Gateway Meeting does not need to be convened where a social work assessment or other event determines that the child requires immediate protection. Consideration should always be given, however, as to whether there is a need to convene a Legal Gateway Meeting following an application for an Emergency Protection Order or following a child or children being taken into Police Protection.
A Legal Gateway Meeting is an opportunity to discuss a case fully, and to consult with colleagues to ensure that children are the subject of active case management and effective child protection planning and that appropriate legal action is taken when required to promote and safeguard the welfare of the child.
The role of the Local Authority legal adviser is to advise about the legal possibilities for achieving the desired aim and to give a view about the quality of the evidence available.
In order to enable a full discussion to take place, the following must be available:
- Relevant assessment/s;
- An up to date Chronology;
- A Plan or a clear indication that options for a plan have been considered;
- A Genogram.
The issues to be considered at the meeting will include the following:
The reasons for the concerns and the evidential basis for establishing Significant Harm and the threshold criteria.
Whether Care Proceedings are necessary - what would be their aim, objective and purpose?
The steps already taken to clarify the issues of concern - i.e. Social work Assessment, as well as other medical and other expert involvement. Note that with pre-birth situations a recent High Court judgement has set iut good practice steps to include:
- A risk assessment of the parent(s) should be undertaken immediately the social workers are made aware of the mother's pregnancy and should be completed 4 weeks before the mother's expected delivery date and disclosed to the parent(s) (and their solicitor where relevant);
- All relevant documentation should be then sent to the Local Authority Legal Adviser to issue proceedings.
(See Pre-Care and Care Proceedings Protocol for Greater Manchester: Social Work Guidance Pack Procedure.)
The action/decisions already taken and where the decisions were made e.g. Strategy Discussion/Meeting, Child Protection Conference, Core Group meeting.
Consideration of the wider family and whether any family members are potentially available or suitable to care for the child on an interim or permanent basis and whether the required checks and assessments have been made,
Whether it may be appropriate to instruct any further expert assessment before the commencement of court proceedings - if so, what are the proposed remit of the instructions and the areas to be addressed, who should the assessment be done by and what are the likely timescales?
Have there been previous Court proceedings in relation to the family? If so, what steps are required to obtain the papers in relation to the case from the Court, or another local authority?
Whether there has been or is scope to convene a Family Group Conference, and what the anticipated outcomes of this might be. (See also Family Group Conferencing Procedure).
Having considered all of the above, the Legal Gateway Meeting will decide to either:
- Continue to work to the current plan (potentially with some recommended changes to the plan, possibly including the convening of a Family Group Conference), reiterating the importance of adherence to its desired outcomes to all relevant parties, and continue to review the plan through existing child protection processes;
- Issue a ‘letter before proceedings’, and convene an urgent planning meeting with the advocates of the parents to agree what extra support / assessment / expectations are required to prevent the need for the Local Authority to issue proceedings;
- Issue proceedings immediately, in circumstances where significant risk of harm (or further harm) has occurred, is imminent and felt to be unavoidable without the Local Authority seeking to share parental responsibility.
2. Who can Convene Legal Gateway Meetings
The decision to convene a Legal Gateway Meeting will be made by the social worker's practice manager, in consultation with their Service Manager.
The Gateway meeting is a Local Authority function with the decision to call a meeting resting solely with the Authority. Therefore, whilst other agencies or inter-agency forum can recommend legal proceedings, they cannot request a Gateway Meeting.
3. Attendance at Legal Gateway Meetings
Legal Gateway Meetings will be chaired by a Service Manager or Head of Service. The meeting must also involve a legal adviser to the Local Authority on childcare matters. Family Placement will ensure the appropriate representation at the meeting (Team manager or Service manager). Consideration should also be given to whether it would be advisable to have a colleague from another agency or service that have an active involvement with the family and whose view would assist in making decisions about the child's legal status. It is expected that the relevant managers, social worker and any other involved professional who can materially add information to assist the decision making process will attend the meeting where possible. The co-ordinator for the Family Group Conference service will attend all meetings, unless it is agreed between them and the case holder and their manager that their attendance would be superfluous.
4. Timing and Duration of Legal Gateway Panel
Legal Gateway Panel meetings will be held each fortnight on Thursday afternoon 1-5pm, or shorter if full session not needed.
The timing of a Legal Gateway Meeting is likely to be determined by the urgency of court proceedings and the need to allow sufficient time for necessary preparation, However as a general rule the case will be discussed at the next available standing date for Legal Gateway Meetings. If the urgency of the circumstances are such that the matter needs to be discussed more urgently than this, then either a meeting will be convened outside the existing schedule of meetings, or consideration may need to be given as to whether an application for an Emergency Protection Order is merited. (See also Applications for Emergency Protection Orders Procedure.)
5. Recording of Legal Gateway Meetings
The chair of the meeting supported by a business support colleague will be responsible for ensuring that a written record of the meeting is made. The record should be checked for accuracy by the chair before being circulated to all attendees. These are legally privileged and should not be made available to parents or other parties in any potential proceedings.
6. Subsequent Legal Gateway Meetings
The meeting should consider whether further Legal Gateway Meetings are necessary and if so, when. It may be that significant new information emerges, or a very significant change of circumstances arises which requires a change of plan for the child. In this event, the Legal Gateway Meeting may be reconvened in order to consider the implications for the legal plan. It is not intended, however, for Legal Gateway meetings to either replace or usurp existing Children’s Social Care or inter-agency casework planning, or decision making processes.
7. PLO Monitoring / Review Legal Gateway Meetings
The Local Authority recognises that when entering into PLO with families it is essential that the intervention is timely and proportionate. It is not helpful for the family when cases remain in PLO for an extended period. The Local Authority has a clear responsibility to monitor each case that is subject to PLO and ensure that each case is subject to rigorous review. In order to do this it is agreed that following the 3rd PLO review meeting or at the end of 4 month period, whichever is sooner, the case will return to the Legal Gateway Panel so that the care plan can be formally reviewed.
In order to assist matters, Business Support will identify those cases which are at the above juncture in PLO and will send invites to the relevant social worker, team manager and Local Authority solicitor to attend panel. The panel will require;
- All the PLO meeting minutes and working agreement;
- Any recent assessments that have taken place during the PLO period.
End