Legal Gateway Panel and Legal Planning Meetings

The Legal Gateway Panel is responsible for hearing all new referrals for a legal planning meeting.

The overall aim of the Legal Gateway Panel is to ensure children’s cases receive consistent legal input and management scrutiny.  This will ensure children’s cases are progressed either through the PLO pre-proceedings process or through care proceedings being issued in a timely manner. This will avoid and reduce drift in care planning and lead to effective and better outcomes for children who are in need of safeguarding. 

The Legal Gateway Panel is responsible for hearing all new children’s cases, save in genuine emergencies when a child’s case will be allocated to a lawyer, via duty for a separate legal planning meeting to take place chaired by the Assistant  Director for Family Support and Child Protection (FSCP) with the agreement of Legal Services outside of the Legal Gateway Panel.

The Legal Gateway Panel will also review all children’s cases with Supervision Orders within 3 months of the Supervision Order expiry date, in order to make decisions about the necessity to renew such Orders.

The Legal Gateway will also review all cases in PLO pre-proceedings when a decision is being made to issue proceedings.

The key aims of the Legal Gateway Panel are:

1. To provide management oversight and scrutiny of all children’s cases where a Legal Planning Meeting has been requested by Children’s Social Care (CSC);
2. To provide senior CSC management overview of cases involving children who are at risk of harm and need safeguarding;
3. To provide consistent oversight and scrutiny in the management of the threshold criteria and the decision whether or not CSC should commence care proceedings or consideration of safe alternatives to issuing proceedings;
4. To ensure effective case planning, timely interventions and pre-proceedings assessments where it is decided that there is a safe alternative to avoid proceedings being issued;
5. To scrutinise initial care plans for care proceedings and in particular, the need for any additional assessments by CSC or other experts;
6. To ensure alternative carers and support networks within the family and wider network are identified and considered at an early stage, with the expectation that Viability Assessments are completed before proceedings are issued and that Family Group Conferences or Family Group meetings have been held;
7. To review all children’s cases with Supervision Orders within 3 months of the Supervision Order expiry date, in order to make decisions about the necessity to renew such Orders.

The Legal Gateway Panel will be chaired by the AD of the relevant service to provide consistency in management oversight and decision making. 

There will be a senior legal advisor to provide consistency in legal advice for all new referrals to Gateway The allocated lawyer in pre-proceedings cases will provide the legal advice.

Representatives from other Services will also be invited to be part of the Panel.

• The Assistant Director for Corporate Parenting;
• Service Manager for Fostering and Permanency;
• Courts Case Manager;
• A representative from Placements & Brokerage Commissioning & Procurement;
• Family Group Conference Manager / Co-ordinator.

A Business Support Officer from CSC will administer the Panel to ensure referrals are processed and sent to Panel members; papers are collated and sent to the Panel members 3 working days before the Panel; cases are allocated a slot on the Panel and social workers and their Team Managers are expected to attend.

Referrals for the Legal Gateway Panel should be sent to the CSC administrator by 12.00 midday on a Thursday in order that the papers and agenda can be distributed to members of the Legal Gateway Panel by close of business on Thursday.

The Legal Gateway Panel will be minuted by an administrator provided by Children’s Social Care.

The Legal Gateway Panel will take place once a week on a Wednesday from 9.30- 12.30pm. There will be 6 slots of 45 minutes duration at each Legal Gateway Panel.

All referrals must be rigorously authorised by an Assistant Director (AD) before being sent to the Panel administrator.  The relevant AD should be assured that there has been a recent supervision/reflective discussion (within the last 14 days) where the social worker and Team Manager have considered why there is a need to have a legal planning meeting and their plan for intervention.

The relevant AD should confirm in writing in the Legal Gateway referral form that the case is ready to be heard and they are approving the referral being made to the Legal Gateway Panel. 

In the absence of such confirmation the referral will not be accepted by the Panel administrator and no steps will be taken to progress the referral until such time that confirmation is received.

All referrals for Legal Gateway Panel must be accompanied by a fully updated social work chronology (the document must include all relevant information and not simply start from the date that the case was allocated to the presenting social worker), genogram and supporting documents (must send to Legal before Legal Gateway Panel date).

• Chronology – this should be a current updated document and set out the support offered with outcomes.  The chronology should state the source of the evidence and not Mosaic e.g. letter from GP dated xxx, Police referral dated xxx;
• Genogram– with full names – dates of birth and addresses of family members if known;
• Any relevant Social Work Assessments.

In addition to the above and depending on the facts of the case. 

• Safety Plan;
• Child Protection Conference/Children Looked After Reports including all agency reports for conference;
• Previous proceedings details including S7/37 Reports;
• Parenting Assessments;
• Expert Reports (i.e. Psychiatric/psychological);
• Drugs/alcohol tests;
• Medical reports and discharge plans/step down plans/action plans;
• Viability/Connected Persons/Special Guardian Assessment;
• Child Protection Plan and Child in Need Plan;
• Any document that is relevant in terms of evidencing s.31 threshold.

If reviewing SO:

1. Supervision Order;
2. Supervision Order Plan;
3. Working Together Agreement/Supervision Order Agreement;
4. Child in Need plans/minutes;
5. Supervision Order Review Minutes;
6. Any other relevant document.

The social worker and their Team Manager must attend the Legal Gateway Panel to present the child’s (children’s) case(s). The Team Manager is required to attend the meeting, as there will be significant discussions about care planning including assessments, allocation of resources and timescales for completion of tasks by the social work team. 

If a Team Manager is unable to attend the Legal Gateway Panel then they must consult the Chair at the earliest opportunity so a decision can be made whether there are exceptional reasons for the case to be heard in the absence of a Team Manager. Alternatively, another Team Manager may attend in their place.

The advice given at Legal Gateway Panel will be dependent upon the written and oral presentation of the social work team and the evidence that they present to show that the child is suffering or at risk of suffering significant harm. Therefore, the social work team must be able to specify what incidents/information of significant harm they are relying upon and avoid references to “concerns”.

The Chair will open the Panel with parties introducing themselves and with the Social Worker / Team Manager providing a brief summary of the facts of the children’s case. 

The social work team must be prepared to address the following issues:

1. What are you worried about?
2. What work have you and other professionals completed with the family and in what way has this work been effective?
3. What assessments have been undertaken of the family and what is the outcome?
4. Are any further assessments needed, and if so, what and why
5. What is your proposed care plan?
6. If the threshold is met, is it safe to work with the family under the Child Protection Plan or PLO pre-proceedings or are proceedings necessary to seek the immediate removal of the child/ren?
7. How do you think a legal framework will help you to achieve the proposed care plan/outcomes for the child/ren?

Legal advice on threshold and any other legal issues/options arising will be given during the meeting. 

The Chair in consultation with other Panel members will make a decision that:

1. If the legal advice is that the threshold is not met to issue proceedings at that stage, the social work team will need to continue working with the family under the Child Protection or Child in Plan and that no further legal action is required at this time;
2. Further work is required and evidence to be gathered before a decision can be made with regard to threshold;
3. If the threshold criteria is met: 
   1. Whether there are interim protective measures in place providing a safe alternative option to proceedings under the Child Protection Plan or under the PLO pre proceedings process; or
   2. Whether proceedings need to be issued immediately.
4. With regards to the Panel reviewing a Supervision Order, whether it is necessary and, in the child’s, best interest to seek a renewal of a Supervision Order.

The Chair in consultation with other Panel members will agree assessments, actions and timescales with the social work team and legal advisor. In the event there are differing views from Panel members, the Chair will make the final decision.

The Legal Gateway Panel minute taker is responsible for drafting the minutes.

The Legal advisor/Chair of the Legal Gateway Panel will review and amend the minutes and the approved minutes will be sent to the Panel administrator within 5 working days of the Legal Gateway Panel.

The Panel administrator will ensure that the minutes are distributed and uploaded to child’s records within 2 working days of receipt.

Following the Legal Gateway Panel on a Wednesday the Chair will produce the outcomes from the cases that will be sent to the Director of CSC for information. The Panel administrator will also enter the outcomes on the child’s records.

Following the Legal Gateway Panel meeting the relevant AD will be responsible for liaising with the social work team directly to track the deadlines agreed and progress of the cases heard by the Legal Gateway Panel.

The Pre-Proceedings Tracking meeting is chaired by the AD Safeguarding who will be responsible for monitoring and tracking the deadlines agreed. The AD where the children’s cases sit will be responsible for timely progression of the children’s cases that enter the Pre-proceedings process under the PLO.

The Pre-Proceedings tracking meeting takes place fortnightly on Tuesday afternoons from 2-4 pm. Social workers and their Team Managers are expected to attend this meeting. The tracking meeting is attended by a Legal advisor, the Case Manager for Court Proceedings and the minutes are taken by a Business Support Officer from CSC.

The minutes will be approved by the Chair and the Business Support Officer from CSC will upload the minutes to the child’s records.

Include TORs for PLO tracking panel

Provides formal oversight etc…..

Pre Legal Gateway Discussions

Include TORs

Is chaired by the AD, provides structured scrutiny of cases where children are experiencing or at risk of experiencing significant harm and where escalation to legal intervention may be required.

This is a non-legal forum, its purpose is to strengthen professional decision making, ensure robust safeguarding plans are in place and reduce delay by providing early decisive senior manager oversight.  It can be a forum where senior management supervision/ oversight can be offered prior to Legal Gateway Panel.

The CP Chairs  / IRO can be invited to give their views at the forum.

The Legal Planning Meeting is an essential part of the process for dealing with public law children's cases under the Public Law Outline. Its purpose is to consider all the information available and decide if the legal threshold is met to commence pre-proceedings or to issue immediate care proceedings.  It is only convened in Lambeth in an emergency where going to Legal Gateway Panel would cause any delay. 

The meetings will follow the same Terms of Reference as the Legal Gateway Panel but would be chaired by the relevant Assistant Director or Service Manager.

Note that with pre-birth situations a recent High Court judgment has set out good practice steps to include:

• A risk assessment of the parent(s) should be undertaken immediately the social workers are made aware of the mother's pregnancy and should be completed 4 weeks before the mother's expected delivery date and disclosed to the parent(s) (and their solicitor where relevant);
• All relevant documentation should be then sent to the Local Authority Legal Adviser to issue proceedings.
  See Care and Supervision Proceedings and the Public Law Outline Procedure, Pre-Birth, Newborns and Infants;
• The action/decisions already taken and where the decisions were made e.g. Strategy Discussion/Meeting, Child Protection Conference, Core Group meeting;
• The proposed Care Plan for the child, including the proposed placement and any cultural, language and developmental issues, the need for a Twin Track Plan, consultation with parents and the wider family, whether any family members are available to care for the child on an interim or permanent basis, if so whether the required checks have been made, the proposals for contact;
• How the proposed Care Plan is to be achieved, including where appropriate arranging a date for the case to be presented to the Adoption Panel;
• Whether it may be appropriate to instruct any further expert assessment before the commencement of court proceedings - if so, what are the proposed remit of the instructions and the areas to be addressed, who should the assessment be done by and what are the likely timescales?
• Have there been previous Court proceedings in relation to the family? If so, what steps are required to obtain the papers in relation to the case from the Court? or another local authority?
• When will the social worker's Statement of Evidence be ready?

If Care Proceedings are recommended, the Care and Supervision Proceedings and the Public Law Outline Procedure should be followed.

Any potential issues/documentation regarding parental capacity to litigate should be flagged up at the meeting.

The timing of a Legal Planning Meeting is likely to be determined by the urgency of court proceedings and the need to allow sufficient time for necessary preparation.

Following Legal Planning Meetings the case will be submitted to the Legal Gateway Panel for ratification.