No inherent jurisdiction for local authority to fund wardship proceedings: HB v A Local Authority [2017] EWHC 524 (Fam)

HB v A Local Authority and  Another (Wardship: Costs Funding Order) [2017] EWHC 524 (Fam) MacDonald J operates on three important levels:

• Does the High Court Family Division have any inherent power to order a local authority to provide funding in a wardship case and in the absence of legal aid?
• Was there existing guidance requiring issue of radicalisation proceedings in wardship; and if so should this be reviewed?
• And what in the context (1) of funding of children proceedings and (2) of Children Act 1989 s 100 does ‘inherent jurisdiction’ mean anyway?

Background

The mother HB had two children aged 6 and 3. Their father had been in Syria for 3 years and may now be dead. The local authority sought findings based on the facts mostly admitted by the mother that:

‘[10] … on one occasion [the mother] took the children to a town in Turkey close to the Syrian border that on two occasions she has been stopped leaving the country with large sums of money that she has sought to provide funds to persons associated with the so...

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