16 and 17 year olds and the Streamlined Process

Last week, Judge Hilder published the following judgment providing a helpful explanation as to why Re X applications in relation to 16 and 17 year olds are being taken out of the streamline process. The Judgment can be found here:-

KL (A Minor : deprivation of liberty) [2022] EWCOP 24 (21 June 2022) (bailii.org)

I would recommend reading the whole judgment however for brevity, Judge Hilder summarises at the end that the Court is unlikely to consider that the streamlined procedure is appropriate for authorisation of deprivation of liberty in the living arrangements of 16/17 year olds. She states at paragraph 69:-

Often the process of identifying a post-18 placement is difficult and protracted. It would be unhelpful, ineffective and unnecessarily expensive in time and fees for the Court to authorise arrangements made by one service which do not have the commitment of the other, or to authorise such arrangements only for a very short period in the knowledge that another application will be required very quickly afterwards. In my judgment, the imminence of transition between services responsible for care arrangements is a marker of unsuitability for the streamlined service.      

If you are concerned as to what application to make in light of this, the following may provide some reassurance:-

1. …“The availability of the streamlined application does not make it inappropriate to start proceedings seeking authorisation of deprivation of liberty by the standard COP1 procedures, even where there is no apparent dispute. Just as judicial antennae may pick up matters which require deeper consideration such that the application is taken out of the streamlined procedure, applicants themselves may form the view that, even without active opposition, arrangements need to be probed more actively than the paperwork procedure envisages. I would be slow to criticise an applicant for making the application by COP1 rather than under the streamlined procedure. In my judgment there is little danger that the workload of the Court will be significantly increased by this approach because the ‘streamlined’ nature of the COPDOL11 procedure, with the prospect of quicker conclusion and lower costs, will be attractive to over-stretched applicants wherever possible.
2. Conversely, where an application has been made by COPDOL11 but the judge considers that the streamlined procedure is not appropriate, unless there was an obvious disregard for the intentions of the streamlined procedure (for example, a clear dispute, or a failure to undertake the consultations required to identify whether or not there is dispute), I would be slow to criticise an applicant for having used it. The fact that a judge has identified concerns attests to the robustness of the procedure; it does not necessarily mean that the application was wrongly made”

As a point of interest, she also states at paragraph 79:-

In the absence of such confirmed information in the application papers, the Law Society’s Practice Note is, in my judgment, correct: it will generally be unlikely for the court to appoint an ALR in cases concerning 16/17 year olds