ABSTRACT
Following the implementation of the 1989 Act there were changes. First, local authorities were no longer allowed to use wardship for the former purposes because they then had a codifi ed portfolio of statutory remedies, which was in any case cheaper as wardship, being a High Court remedy, naturally costs more than a Children Act application in either of the other levels of court in the triple tier of Family justice: the High Court’s power to commit a child to care under the wardship jurisdiction was abolished by CA 1989 s 100(1) so that local authorities then had no option but to use s 31 of the Act. Second, their access to the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court (of which wardship is a particular species; see below) was also restricted by s 100(2), so they could no longer use that to place a child in care, to supervise it or to accommodate it, because they had new statutory powers under ss 31, 35 and 20 of the Act. Third, if the authority still really wanted to use the inherent jurisdiction of the High Court, by s 100(3) and (4) they had to obtain permission and satisfy conditions, namely to show that this was necessary or the child would suffer harm, and that no other remedy would suit instead. An example might be where a care order was sought for
This meant in practice that the authority would have to satisfy the same conditions as for a care order under s 31, even though they did not want to obtain parental responsibility, which an order under that section would give them. These changes combined to take a raft of work away from the High Court, leaving the judges of the Family Division freed up to do what had then become the core work of the wardship and inherent jurisdictions, i.e. cases requiring speedy one-off decisions of high-level importance, which tended to go to the inherent jurisdiction before a specialist Family Division High Court judge, and those also requiring speed but ongoing supervision as well, which was the particular speciality of wardship which could be obtained by no other means.
