Family Help Déjà Vu

We have kept you up to date with the ongoing (never ending?) dispute about stand-alone breaches under the Criminal Contract.

If there is a Family version of this it is the criteria for Level 2, Family Help (Public Law) claims.

As you can see we last discussed this in 2016 at which point it was already a 2 year old story. Anyhow the Regional Office backed off and it seemed as though this had, as promised, been “shared with the wider team”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly it has re-emerged. The present dispute hangs on whether there is a requirement either:

  1. To assess, at outset, if there are prospects of “negotiation” with the Local Authority either to avoid proceedings or to reduce the areas of dispute – a kind of new merits test.
  2. To evidence that there has been such negotiation.

In 2016 they reluctantly, and bad temperedly, conceded that neither was required.

Back to 2019 and a different region returned, banging the same drum. We went to an ICA appeal and won the point – a completed Family Help Lower (PL) form and a PLO letter from the LA id sufficient to justify a claim.

Equally predictably however the LAA, again bad temperedly, have stated that this will not become “policy”. Expect to have to argue the point again therefore – we have prewritten reps if necessary.

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