Family Law

The Government published the responses to the Care Matters Green Paper on 17 April 2007. A White Paper setting out the Department for Education and Skills' next steps will be published later this year. Care Matters: Transforming the Lives of Children and Young People in Care was published in October 2006. Four working groups have been set up to look at social care practices, the placement system, education and long term plans for the care system. There are 60,000 children in care at any one time with as many as 90,000 children spending some time in care over the course of a year. The majority of children (around 65 per cent) enter care on a mandatory basis as a result of care orders being made by the courts with 31 per cent entering on a voluntary basis through agreements between social services and their parents. A summary of the responses to the Green Paper and a young person's version can be found on http://www.dfes.gov.uk/publications/carematters/index.shtml. For further information see June [2007] Fam Law.