Interim Care Order in UK Law

Under the interim care order the decision-making power as to the care, residence and general welfare of the child is vested in the local authority, not in the court. Under the interim care order the decision-making power as to the care, residence and general welfare of the child is vested in the local authority, not in the court.

The purpose of subsection (6) is to enable the court to obtain the information necessary for its own decision, notwithstanding the control over the child which in all other respects rests with the local authority. The purpose of subsection (6) is to enable the court to obtain the information necessary for its own decision, notwithstanding the control over the child which in all other respects rests with the local authority.

Next, it is true that the subsections (6) and (7) only refer to the assessment "of the child" and not, as is proposed in the present case, a joint assessment of the child and the parents, including the parents' attitude and behaviour towards the child.

Decisions in this court have emphasised that at an interim stage the removal of children from their parents is not to be sanctioned unless the child's safety requires interim protection. The cases to this effect already reported are H (A Child) (Interim Care Order) [2003] 1 FCR 350 and M (Interim Care Order: Removal) [2006] 1 FLR 1043. Mr Hepher also draws attention to a similar approach in the European case of Haase v Germany [2004] 2 FLR 39.

The regime of interim care orders laid down by section 38 of the Act (with its limitation to maximum periods of eight weeks in the first instance and four weeks thereafter) is designed to leave the court with the ability to maintain strict control of any steps taken or proposed by a local authority in the exercise of powers that are by their nature temporary and subject to continuous review.

Whatever the impression a casual reader might gain from reading some newspaper reports, no local authority and no social worker has any power to remove a child from its parent or, without the agreement of the parent, to take a child into care, unless they have first obtained an order from a family court authorising that step: either an emergency protection order in accordance with section 44 of the Children Act 1989 or an interim care order in accordance with section 38 of the Act or perhaps, in an exceptional case (and subject to section 100 of the Act), a wardship order made by a judge of the Family Division of the High Court.

Secondly, looking at the matter purposively, it seems to me clear, that the court is given a very broad and generous power of determination in deciding what is appropriate and what is not appropriate in respect of the assessment of the child in the interim period.