View from the foot of the Tower: Renewals of section 38 orders

The Children and Families Act 2014 removes from the Children Act 1989 the old prohibition on an Interim Care Order or Interim Supervision Order being made for longer than 28 days (or a combination of the first two such orders adding up to 12 weeks).

In this article I will briefly set out the new provisions but then more importantly consider what this means in practice.

The new provisions

Under the new legislation which will come into force on 22 April the Court may make Interim Care Orders or Interim Supervision Orders for any period (unless the order arose of the court's own motion using the power under s 37(4) of the Children Act 1989 when the orders are limited to 8 weeks).

Rather than deleting s 38 and replacing it with a new version the legislation is framed in the modern way in which you need to sit with the old Act and the new Act side by side and devise your own translation; as though you were a duller minor character in a Dan...

Read the full article here.