Agreements to Avoid? The Law, Policy and Practice of Section 20 Children Act 1989

Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 allows children to be accommodated by the local authority without a court order, provided no person with parental responsibility objects. Section 20 was created as a family support tool, often referred to as a 's20 agreement', which empowers local authorities to assist families where there may be illness, disability, or some form of family crisis, such as addiction or domestic abuse. However, in the 2010s, several cases reached the higher courts of England and Wales in which misuse, misinterpretation and misunderstanding of s20 was found. Since the matter reached the Supreme Court in 2018, in Williams v Hackney LBC, these high-profile appeal cases have reduced. However, little is still known about the day-to-day use of s20 in practice, due to its unique position as an out-of-court 'agreement'. This means that there are no public records of s20 arrangements beyond basic statistical data, and that they are not routinely subject to judicial oversight. Further, there has been no academic research published which focuses primarily on the use of s20, though research on voluntary care in other jurisdictions is increasing.

This thesis examines the guidance, policy and information documents used in the practice of s20 agreements and accommodation, gained through Freedom of Information ("FOI") requests to all children's services departments in England. It investigates how the law and policy of s20 is interpreted, perceived and used by social work teams in their day-to-day child protection work. Through a multifaceted theoretical approach - which draws upon concepts of power, autonomy and neoliberal systems - the FOI data is presented to evidence the entrenched problems in the use of s20 within the child protection system. The findings demonstrate that the interaction of law, policy and social work practice create significant inconsistencies in s20's use across the country. Further, the thesis reveals how the influence of neoliberalism upon s20 agreements and accommodation, on both national and local levels, results in s20's use as a coercive - rather than supportive - tool, which may limit and diminish the exercise of parental autonomy in practice.