An anonymous correspondent reports as follows:

I spent six glorious hours at court yesterday with time to chat to colleagues.  We ended up comparing notes on the various manoeuvres local authorities are trying to use to get out of paying any money for anything at all.

My best story is that of one unnamed London LA which EPO’d four children of 11 and under – mother drinking, psych issues, neglect and all this particularly worrying as one child has serious global disabilities.  Five months of care proceedings and LA inaction later  – and then LA pops up at court and announces it wishes to withdraw from the proceedings as the extended family should be allowed to craft  its own solution for the children, free from the oppression of state intervention.  And the source of this remarkably libertarian approach?

You guessed it: a recommendation from the LA’s very own Resources Panel.  How we roared.

Upon which I need make no comment.