Supervision Orders

What a Supervision Order Is

Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 lets a local authority (or the NSPCC) ask the family court for one of two orders: a care order, which places your child in the care of a designated local authority, or a supervision order, which puts your child under that authority's supervision. Both need the same legal test. The difference is what happens afterwards.

Under a supervision order your child carries on living with you or with the person they already live with. The authority does not receive parental responsibility: section 33, which gives an authority parental responsibility under a care order, does not apply. Nor does the order by itself make your child a looked after child, because section 22 defines that as a child in the authority's care or accommodated by it. Our parental responsibility page covers what you keep.

What the authority receives is a set of duties under section 35: to advise, assist and befriend your child, to take the steps reasonably necessary to give effect to the order, and to consider applying to vary or discharge it where it is not wholly complied with or may no longer be needed. No care or supervision order can be made for a child who has reached 17, or 16 if married. For the orders that can place a child in the authority's care see care orders and emergency protection orders.

The Legal Test the Court Applies

The court may only make a supervision order if satisfied of the threshold in section 31(2): that your child is suffering, or is likely to suffer, significant harm, and that the harm is attributable to the care given, or likely to be given if no order were made, not being what it would be reasonable to expect a parent to give, or to the child being beyond parental control.

Crossing the threshold does not decide which order is made. Your child's welfare is paramount, the welfare checklist in section 1 applies, and the court may not make any order unless it would be better for the child than no order at all. Section 31(5) lets the court make a supervision order on an application for a care order, and the reverse, so the authority's choice of application is a starting point rather than the answer.

The Public Law Working Group's 2023 best practice guidance adds that the court will want to consider whether the authority's support is needed and what benefit supervising the child in the community will bring. It is guidance rather than statute, but it shapes how these cases are run.

What the Order Can Require

Schedule 3 to the Act sets out what a supervision order can contain. It may require your child to follow the supervisor's directions to live at a specified place, to present themselves to specified people at specified times, and to take part in specified activities; the supervisor decides whether and how far to use that power. It may also require your child to report a change of address and to allow visits at home.

Most obligations on you under paragraph 3 need your consent, though the order may require you to keep the supervisor informed of your own address without it. With the consent of a responsible person (anyone with parental responsibility, and anyone else the child lives with) the order may require that person to take all reasonable steps to ensure the child follows the directions, and to attend specified activities themselves. Whatever you consent to, you must give the supervisor the child's address if asked and, if your child lives with you, allow the supervisor reasonable contact. A treatment requirement needs a registered medical practitioner's evidence, and no examination or treatment requirement may be included without the child's consent where the child has sufficient understanding.

Problems we see in practice:

• The plan is vague. The guidance says the authority should file a supervision order plan with its final evidence and the court should approve it before making the order: ask for services, visits and review dates to be written in.
• Parents consent to obligations they do not understand. A paragraph 3(1) obligation cannot be included without consent.
• The order becomes a monitoring tool, which the guidance says it should not be.
• Nobody plans for the end. The guidance recommends a review at least a month before the order ends.

Parts I and II of Schedule 3 contain no enforcement provision. The supervisor's route under section 35(1)(c) is to consider applying to vary or discharge the order, and an authority that believes the order is failing may instead apply for a care order, which must satisfy the court on its own evidence.

How Long It Lasts and How It Ends

A supervision order ceases to have effect one year after the date it was made unless the court extends it. Only the supervisor can apply to extend, the court may extend for such period as it specifies, and the order may not run beyond three years from the date it was first made.

The order can end earlier. Under section 39(2) any person with parental responsibility, the child, or the supervisor may apply to vary or discharge it. Once a discharge application has been decided, section 91(15) says another may not be made within six months without the court's permission. Making a care order discharges a supervision order. Replacing a care order with a supervision order is covered on our discharge or variation of care orders page.

Your own application to vary or discharge is made to the family court on the prescribed Children Act form. A court fee may apply, with help with fees for people on a low income; the current figures are on the GOV.UK court and tribunal fees page.

How the Supervision Order Process Works

Supervision orders are made in care proceedings, which follow the Public Law Outline in Practice Direction 12A. The standard stages are these.

1. Pre-proceedings. The authority sends a letter before proceedings warning that it is likely to apply for a care or supervision order. Since 15 July 2026, in England, the letter must also offer a family group decision-making meeting under section 31ZA, to be held before any application if accepted, unless the authority considers that would not be in the child's best interests. See our Public Law Outline and pre-proceedings page.
2. Issue. The court allocates the case and gives standard directions, and may make an interim supervision or care order where there are reasonable grounds for believing the threshold circumstances exist.
3. Case management hearing, between day 12 and day 18. The children's guardian is confirmed, the key issues identified and the timetable set, aiming under section 32 to finish within 26 weeks of issue.
4. Issues resolution hearing. The authority files its final evidence and plan; where a supervision order is proposed, the guidance expects a supervision order plan to be filed with it.
5. Final hearing. The court decides whether the threshold is met and, if so, whether a care order, a supervision order or no order is better for your child.
6. After the order. The supervisor's duties begin, the plan is put into action and reviewed, and before the year ends the authority decides whether to let the order lapse or to ask the court to extend or discharge it.

A supervision order can also arise from private proceedings: where a child's welfare is in question in an application for a child arrangements order, section 37 lets the court direct the authority to investigate and consider whether to apply for a care or supervision order.

When Legal Advice Is Especially Important

Advice matters most where the order's shape is decided. If the authority wants a care order and your evidence shows your child can safely stay at home with support, the case for a supervision order has to be made against the welfare checklist, not asserted. If the proposed plan names no services, visits or review dates, challenge it before the order is made. Later, you are entitled to oppose an extension or ask for a shorter one.

Where there has been domestic abuse, call 999 in immediate danger or the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247; our domestic abuse injunctions page covers the protective orders that can run alongside care proceedings. Immigration consequences are a separate question covered on our family immigration pages.

Funding is the first question to settle. In section 31 proceedings legal aid is not means tested for the child, a parent or another person with parental responsibility, but only a firm with a legal aid contract, which RakLAW does not hold, can provide it. We are privately funded, so a publicly funded firm may be the right choice for many parents. The Family Rights Group runs a free advice line for parents, kinship carers, relatives and friends of children involved with children's services in England on 0808 801 0366, Monday to Friday 9.30am to 3pm.

How RakLAW Solicitors Can Help

RakLAW Solicitors is a privately funded firm at 42 Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD, near Tower Bridge in Southwark, founded by solicitor Rakesh Prajapati. We advise parents and carers at every stage, from testing the threshold evidence and putting the case for a child staying at home to negotiating the plan and applying to vary, discharge or oppose an extension of the order.

We offer a free 15-minute consultation, and we will tell you plainly if a legal aid provider, which we are not, would serve you better. Our charging basis is on our family law fees page. For the wider process start at our care proceedings and social services hub, which also covers social services involvement and special guardianship orders. Call 0203 345 2000 to book.