Records & plans
What is deprivation of liberty?
Deprivation of liberty is where the arrangements for a child's care amount to continuous supervision and control without them being free to leave. It requires authorisation by a court.
It is about the cumulative effect of arrangements rather than any single measure. Door alarms, supervision levels and restrictions together can amount to it even where no individual element would.
Authorisation comes from the court, and arrangements amounting to a deprivation without it are unlawful however well-intentioned and however necessary they feel.
The area has been the subject of considerable litigation and of concern about placement availability, so the position is one to take advice on rather than to read once.
In practice
A home that locks the kitchen at night and the front door always.
Each measure was introduced for a reason, each is sensible on its own, and together they add up to something nobody chose deliberately.
Restriction accumulates. The question is not whether any single door should be locked but what the cumulative arrangement amounts to for a child living inside it, and whether anything authorises it.
Homes rarely decide to restrict. They decide eleven times about eleven doors.
What goes wrong in practice
- Restrictions accumulating without anyone assessing their combined effect.
- Arrangements continued after an authorisation expired.
- Assumed not to apply because the home is not a secure setting.