06 July 2012
Re A & S (children) (failed freeing order) [2012] All ER (D) 173 (Jun), [2012] EWHC 1689 (Fam)
Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) needed to have sufficient training and experience to recognise the importance of issues of the kind raised by children with increasingly complex needs. There was an obligation on every local authority to ensure that IROs had access to legal advice. If that could not be achieved, it might be an argument for making reciprocal arrangements mandatory or even for removing IROs from local authority control altogether.
