ABSTRACT
Increasing concern expressed throughout the 1980s over the inadequacies of the state system of child protection and family support led to a review of child care law in 1985 which culminated in the White Paper, The Law on Child Care and Family Services (Cm 62). Its recommendations were to form the basis of the public law provisions of the Children Act 1989. The overriding principles are:
• parents should assume the primary responsibility for the upbringing of their children;
• the state should provide as much assistance as possible to help parents fulfil their obligations;
• if a child has to be taken into local authority care then the powers and responsibilities of both parents and local authority should be clear;
• where the child is in the care of the local authority or being looked after away from home, contact with the parents should be maintained whenever the circumstances permit.
