Submitted by: The Committee of Management

The National Council of Women of Great Britain in Conference assembled, while welcoming the declaration in the White Paper “˜Children in Trouble’ that legal reforms in the law of England and Wales relating to Children and Young Persons will be introduced gradually and only as the services concerned have the resources to carry out new tasks, urges Her Majesty’s Government:

1. That the proposed Public System of Community Homes be not implemented unless adequate safeguards can be obtained that the existing priorities for, and standards of, such establishments shall not be lowered;

2. that when a juvenile is dealt with extra-judicially for an offence, a person with expert legal knowledge shall be present to supervise his legal interests;

3. that where proceedings are necessary in the 10-14 age group, the commission of an offence in itself be a sufficient ground for care, protection or control proceedings without the additional need to prove parental neglect or failure to control and, furthermore, that the Courts shall retain the power to order compensation which can be payable by a parent;

4. that the proposed restrictions on the prosecution of offenders in the 14-17 age group are likely to prove administratively impracticable, will cause injurious delays, and should be revised.