A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

[leclerc]

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCOP/2014/48.html

This is a case where the judge is saying that whilst there litigation has been more about the faults of a plan for the care of a person, realistically, those advocating that line in the courts are not researching enough a solution that might be put to the court.

[leclerc]

Re: A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

Paragraphs 14 and 15 are specifically stating that people are looking so much at the smallest of things that the continued delay has the affect that nothing is being resolved for the person concerned..

[stevemLS]

Re: A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

In my experience it is usually those acting for the Official Solicitor who seek to "gold plate" a package of care.

[leclerc]

Re: A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

His final remarks in paragraph 18 is this:

" The purpose of this judgment is to express the view that the case management provisions in the Court of Protection Rules have proved inadequate on their own to secure the necessary changes in practice. While cases about children and cases about incapacitated adults have differences, their similarities are also obvious. There is a clear procedural analogy to be drawn between many welfare proceedings in the Court of Protection and proceedings under the Children Act. As a result of the Public Law Outline, robust case management, use of experts only where necessary, judicial continuity, and a statutory time-limit, the length of care cases has halved in two years. Yet Court of Protection proceedings can commonly start with no timetable at all for their conclusion, nor any early vision of what an acceptable outcome would look like. The young man in Case B is said to have a mental age of 8. What would we now say if it took five years – or 18 months – to decide the future of an 8-year-old?" (my emphasis btw)

[stevemLS]

Re: A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

And,, again, in my experience, there is a clear question to be resolved at the outset but parties go off on tangents and you end up with many aspects being questioned, often which have operated to the satisfaction of all concerned for years.

I will be drawing this case to the court's attention at a hearing next week.

[MissFM]

Re: A & B (court of Protection delay and costs)

Few if any of the Rule 5 case management strategies were exhibited in these proceedings. There were too many hearings before too many judges^[1], too much documentation, and too many lengthy adjournments with excessive time estimates for hearings.

In these cases, the consequence of delay has been protracted stress – described by one parent as "the human misery" – for the young men and their families, with years being lost while solutions were sought. There is also the drain on the time and energy of social work and medical professionals, who have to service the needs of the proceedings alongside their normal responsibilities.

Just as the meter in a taxi keeps running even when not much is happening, so there is a direct correlation between delay and expense. As noted above, the great majority of the cost of these cases fell on the state. Public money is in short supply, not least in the area of legal aid, and must be focussed on where it is most needed: there are currently cases in the Family Court that cannot be fairly tried for lack of paid legal representation. Likewise, Court of Protection cases like these are of real importance and undoubtedly need proper public funding, but they are almost all capable of being decided quickly and efficiently, as the Rules require.

Bleak House anyone? I despair.