Written evidence from Luke Clements,

Cerebra Professor of Law and Social Justice University of Leeds (CFA0008)

HOUSE OF LORDS CHILDREN AND FAMILIES ACT 2014 SELECT COMMITTEE INQURY

Luke Clements,

Cerebra Professor of Law and Social Justice

House of Lords

Select Committee on the Children and Families Act 2014

11 April 2022

Dear Committee Chair

Children and Families Act 2014, s97 ~ Parent Carer Needs Assessments

I respond to the Committee’s call for evidence on the impact of the Children and Families Act 2014.  This response concerns a discrete provision, namely the Act’s requirement (section 97) that Children’s Services authorities undertake ‘Parent Carer Needs Assessments’ (PCNA). 

Since the relevant provision came into effect, the Advice and Information line of the disabled children’s charity ‘Cerebra’ has received many enquiries from parents of disabled children whose requests for a PCNA have been denied by their local authority.  In consequence, research was undertaken by the Cerebra Legal Entitlements and Problem-solving (LEaP) programme at the School of Law, the University of Leeds to ascertain (among other things) the extent to which local authorities were informing families as to the new duty. 

The Department of Education – through the medium of statutory guidance (‘Working Together 2018’[1]) – requires that Children’s Services authorities publish local protocols for assessment’: protocols that ‘set out clear arrangements for how cases will be managed once a child is referred into local authority children’s social care’ (Working Together 2018 para 46).

A copy of the report[2] resulting from the LEaP research programme is attached.  The research identified 94 per cent (143) of English local authority protocols and found that of these, only 5 (3 per cent) included a reference to the authority’s duty to undertake a PCNA.

Luke Clements
Cerebra Professor of Law and Social Justice.

April 2022