Parental Agreement in Care Case

In Re X (Minors) (Care Proceedings: Parent Responsibility) (CA TLR 19 January)

A local authority holding children under a care order has no power to prevent the mother from entering into a parental responsibility agreement with the unmarried father, even though the children were unlikely to ever return to the mother’s care. The facility under s4(1)(b) of the Children Act 1989 for the parents of a non-marital child to enter into a parental responsibility agreement was a self-contained facility which did not depend upon the exercise of parental responsibility and therefore they were not prevented from doing so by virtue of the council sharing parental responsibility with the mother by virtue of s33 of the Act.