Waiting for Court Decisions: A Kind of Limbo

Abstract

One of the specific objectives of the Children Act 1989 was to reduce the duration of care proceedings, since it was recognised that a long period of uncertainty was likely to be harmful to children. But care proceedings have in fact been increasing steadily in length since the Act was implemented in 1991. Chris Beckett presents the evidence for this, reviews the available literature on the possible reasons and suggests that further attention needs to be given to the effects on children of such delays, which could be considered a form of ‘system abuse’.