Costs against local authorities in care proceedings: Re T

Her Honour Nasreen Pearce

Retired Circuit Judge:

The decision of the Supreme Court in Re T (Costs: Care Proceedings: Serious Allegation Not Proved) [2012] UKSC 36 [2013] 1 FLR (forthcoming) may lead local authorities to sigh a sigh of relief and regard themselves as immune from the liability for costs in care proceedings unless it is established that their conduct was reprehensible or unreasonable and a party who is denied public funding and thus the right to defend the allegations and a fair trial to feel a sense of injustice. Given that a local authority is under a statutory duty to investigate and safeguard children where it receives information that a child has been subjected to harm or is likely to be subjected to harm local authorities may work on the principle that it would be extremely rare for a party to establish that their action in instigating proceedings and their conduct within care proceedings was reprehensible or unreasonable. However the issue of a local authority's liability for costs is not so clear cut and there may well...

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