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11 October 2007 / Ceri White
Issue: 7292 / Categories: Features , Child law
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Child law update

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new public law outline >>
early hearing dates >>
pre-proceedings checklist >>
doubts about efficacy >>

The once-vaunted Public Law Protocol was supplanted in September by the new Public Law Outline (PLO). London, along with nine other areas—Liverpool, Portsmouth, Oxford/Milton Keynes, Birmingham, Leicester, Newcastle, Warrington, Swansea and Plymouth/Exeter—have been selected as “initiative centres” to pilot the outline.

A lack of pre-launch publicity has resulted in an alarming ignorance about the existence of the new outline, which is now being remedied in the piloting areas. A recent London meeting to explain the new procedures saw many practitioners (myself included) frantically scribbling down Mr Justice Ryder and District Judge Cushing’s pearls of wisdom.

AIM OF THE NEW OUTLINE

The aim of the outline is to reduce the inordinate delay between application and disposal suffered by children in care proceedings. Everyone accepts that the current care centre average of 51 weeks from application to disposal (42 weeks at Family Proceedings Court level) is far too long and has invidious consequences for the children involved, regardless of whether

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

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Sponsored by
Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Slater Heelis—Charlotte Beck

Partner and Manchester office lead appointed head of family

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

Civil Justice Council—Nigel Teasdale

DWF insurance services director appointed to Civil Justice Council

R3—Jodie Wildridge

R3—Jodie Wildridge

Kings Chambers barrister appointed chair of R3 Yorkshire

NEWS
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NLJ this week: Renters’ Rights revolution begins—brace for tribunal chaos

The abolition of assured shorthold tenancies and section 21 evictions marks the beginning of a ‘brave new world’ for England’s rental sector, writes Daniel Bacon of Seddons GSC

NLJ this week: Civil procedure gets a spring overhaul
Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way column rounds up a flurry of procedural and regulatory changes reshaping housing, alternative dispute resolution (ADR) and personal injury litigation
NLJ this week: Why GP complaints are going nowhere
Patients are being systematically failed by an NHS complaints regime that is opaque, poorly enforced and often stacked against them, argues Charles Davey of The Barrister Group
NLJ this week: Prenups meet a jurisdictional brick wall
A wealthy Russian divorce battle has produced a sharp warning about trying to challenge foreign nuptial agreements in the wrong English court. Writing in NLJ this week, Vanessa Friend and Robert Jackson of Hodge Jones & Allen examine Timokhin v Timokhina, where the High Court enforced Russian judgments arising from a prenuptial agreement despite arguments based on the landmark Radmacher decision
NLJ this week: Has Rylands v Fletcher come back from the dead?
An obscure Victorian tort may be heading for an unexpected revival after a significant Privy Council ruling that could reshape liability for dangerous escapes, according to Richard Buckley, barrister and emeritus professor of law at the University of Reading
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