The Children Act 1989 came into force in October 1991. For any child born on or after this and whose parents were married at the time, the parents have joint "parental responsibility".
Before this date you may have heard terms like "custody", "care and control" or "access". These have now been replaced with 'parental responsibility', 'residence' and 'contact'.
Joint Parental Responsibility
Parental responsibility is defined as "all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent of a child has in relation to a child and his property". Parental responsibility means that both parents have responsibility for their children until aged 18 whether they continue to be married or not.
It means that both parents have the right to be involved in the decision making process for their children over such matters as:
The purpose of the arrangement is that it was felt that parents should be able to make reasonable arrangements between themselves with regard to the children rather than the old arrangements of the courts issuing custody, care and control or access orders, which may be restrictive. In this way there is no formal arrangement just a 'Statement of Arrangements' for the children where residence and contact are agreed.
However, if the court feels that by issuing an order it may be in the best interests of the child then it may do so. If for example, the parents could not come to an agreement for the arrangements of the children then an order is likely to be made by the court. Such court orders come within section 8 of the Children Act.
Section 8 Orders
They are issued when parents cannot reach agreement over the children, they are commonly known as Section 8 orders, although there are a number of orders that can be issued:
If there is a dispute and a section 8 order is sought, this will have to be applied for at court and the judge involved will consider it, personal attendance at court will normally be required.
The judge may also request further evidence in connection with the application and/or seek welfare reports.
The judge may also request the attendance of the children, although this may only happen if they are older e.g. over the age of 10 years.
It should also be noted that whilst parental responsibility remains until the child is 18, a section 8 order will normally only remain in place until aged 16. In exceptional circumstances e.g. if the child has some form of disability then an order may remain in place for longer.