YY (Children: Conduct of the Local Authority) [2021] EWHC 749 (Fam)

Keehan J’s judgement (89 pages) was delivered at the conclusion of a fact-finding hearing on 3 applications: contact to children in care, discharge of care with the making of a special guardianship order to long-term foster carers and permission to change the children’s surname. It describes what found to be “egregious and long-standing failures” by the local authority and he questioned whether its children’s services were fit for purpose. [226-227] The 3 children were 17, 13 and 11. A fourth child C had died at the age of 14 in 2019.