Protocol for judicial case management in public law Children Act cases

The average care case lasts for almost a year, which means that many cases take considerably longer. After widespread consultation with all concerned with public family law, the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee, chaired by Munby and Coleridge JJ (the architects of the scheme of more active and structural judicial case management running for the past year in the High Court), has produced a protocol endorsed by the President of the Family Division and the Lord Chancellor, which is to be implemented by a practice direction in all courts from 1 November. The protocol sets a guideline of 40 weeks for the conclusion of care cases, plus a maximum of 20 days for reserved judgments; it envisages that although some cases will take longer, many more cases should take less. It is based on a six-step route map as follows: