Member

Children, parents or family members can ask their local authority to be referred for family group decision-making at any point in their journey with children’s services, as we discussed on the previous group. However, with respect to the ability of a young person over the age of 16 alone to be able to request a family group decision-making process, our position is that any outcome of a family group decision-making process would need to be agreed by those with parental responsibility and, as such, it is clearly preferable for them to be engaged from the outset wherever possible. Even young people of the age of 16 or 17 will have people who have parental responsibility over them. We will set out in statutory guidance how local authorities should approach such situations, but we do not believe that it would be appropriate to legislate for a formal process that does not have the consent of those with parental responsibility, which the amendments would do.