Parental Responsibility

What Parental Responsibility Means

The Children Act 1989 defines parental responsibility as all the rights, duties, powers, responsibilities and authority which by law a parent has in relation to a child and the child's property.

Your most important roles are to provide a home for the child and to protect and maintain the child. You are also responsible for:

• disciplining the child
• choosing and providing for the child's education
• agreeing to the child's medical treatment
• naming the child and agreeing to any change of name
• looking after the child's property

Where you hold parental responsibility but do not live with the child, it gives you no right to see them, although the other parent must include you in important decisions. Time is settled by agreement or by a child arrangements order. Money is separate: you must support your child financially whether or not you hold responsibility, and our child maintenance advice explains how that is worked out.

Someone without parental responsibility who has care of the child may do what is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case to safeguard or promote the child's welfare.

Who Has Parental Responsibility Automatically

Where a child's father and mother were married to, or civil partners of, each other at the time of the birth, they each have parental responsibility. A father who marries the mother, or becomes her civil partner, after the birth normally acquires it too: section 2(3) is read with section 1 of the Family Law Reform Act 1987, which treats a legitimated child as one whose parents were married at the time of the birth. Legitimation on a later marriage or civil partnership turns on where the father was domiciled at the time, so take advice if that was outside England and Wales. Where the parents never married or formed a civil partnership, the mother has it and the father has it only if he has acquired it under the Act. The same pattern applies to a second female parent under the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008.

After fertility treatment you have it automatically if you were married to or in a civil partnership with the birth mother and consented to the treatment. Where a child is born through surrogacy the surrogate who gives birth has parental responsibility, and parenthood normally passes to the intended parents through a parental order. Step-parents do not acquire the status automatically, even when married to the child's parent.

Others can hold it. A guardian appointed by a parent, guardian or special guardian has parental responsibility once the appointment takes effect, which is normally on the death of the person who made it, although where a parent with parental responsibility survives it is usually later, when the child no longer has such a parent. A non-parent named in a child arrangements order as someone the child is to live with has it while the order is in force, and the court may give it to a person named for time or contact. Neither of them can agree or refuse to agree to the making of an adoption order, and neither can appoint a guardian. A special guardianship order carries responsibility the special guardian may exercise to the exclusion of others who hold it, apart from another special guardian, and an adoption order gives it to the adopters and ends everyone else's, except that a parent keeps it where their partner, whether or not they are married or civil partners, adopts the child through step-parent adoption.

More than one person can hold responsibility for the same child at once, and more than two people can. You do not lose it because someone else acquires it. It cannot be surrendered or transferred, although the arrangements for meeting it can be delegated, which leaves the holder answerable.

How a Father or Second Parent Acquires It

A father who has not married the mother or entered a civil partnership with her acquires parental responsibility in one of three ways: by becoming registered as the child's father, by a parental responsibility agreement with the mother, or by an order of the court on his application. Section 12 adds a fourth route: where the court names him in a child arrangements order as a person the child is to live with, it must also give him parental responsibility. A second female parent acquires it the same ways under section 4ZA and section 12.

Registration here means registering the birth jointly with the mother, or a later joint re-registration where the birth was first registered with no father named.

A step-parent must be married to, or the civil partner of, a parent who has parental responsibility. The routes are an agreement with that parent, joined by the other parent where they hold it too, or a court order on the step-parent's own application.

Sections 4, 4ZA and 4A set no test of their own. The child's welfare is the court's paramount consideration, and it will not make the order unless doing so is better for the child than making none. The court looks at welfare in the round.

Grandparents and other relatives cannot apply for parental responsibility itself. Their routes are a child arrangements order, for which many relatives need the court's permission first, or special guardianship: our page for grandparents seeking contact sets out where they stand.

Evidence and Common Problems

Parental responsibility is proved by documents. A birth certificate showing a joint registration, a marriage or civil partnership certificate, a sealed agreement or a court order each do the job. These problems come up most often:

• an agreement witnessed at a family court but never sent to the court named on the form, and so never recorded
• a step-parent agreement missing the signature of a parent who also holds responsibility
• a major decision taken without asking everyone who holds it, where a specific issue order or a prohibited steps order is the answer

While a child arrangements order about where the child lives is in force, no one may cause the child to be known by a new surname or remove the child from the United Kingdom without the written consent of everyone with parental responsibility or the leave of the court. A person the order names as someone the child lives with may take the child abroad for less than a month. Our pages on taking a child abroad and relocation with children cover longer trips and moves.

Where there has been abuse, call 999 if anyone is in immediate danger, or the National Domestic Abuse Helpline on 0808 2000 247. Read our MIAM exemptions page as well, because you may not have to attend a mediation meeting first. Where your right to stay in the UK turns on your relationship with your child, our family immigration pages cover that.

How the Process Works

1. Establish who holds parental responsibility now, and collect the certificates, agreements or orders that prove it.
2. Where everyone who must consent agrees, complete the right form: C(PRA1) where a father is to have it, C(PRA2) for a step-parent, C(PRA3) for a second female parent.
3. Take it to a family court with the child's birth certificate and photographic identification so the signatures can be witnessed. Then send the original form, with the copies of the form and of the certificates that its notes list, to the court named on the form: the agreement has no effect until it is recorded there.
4. Where there is no agreement, attend a Mediation Information and Assessment Meeting with an authorised family mediator first, unless a recognised exemption applies.
5. Apply on form C1. A court fee may be payable: the fee list for family court cases is linked from the GOV.UK court and tribunal fees page, and with little or no savings and a low income or certain benefits you may be able to get money off the fee.
6. Everyone the applicant believes to have parental responsibility is a respondent, is served with the application and can agree or oppose.
7. Keep the sealed agreement or order. Responsibility acquired either way runs until the child reaches 18, and only a court can bring it to an end before then.

When Legal Advice Is Especially Important

Some situations are hard to handle on your own:

• the application is opposed, or allegations are made that lead to a fact-finding hearing
• a school place, a medical decision or a house move is about to be settled without you
• your child may be taken out of the United Kingdom without consent, or has been taken already: see our page on international child abduction
• you are an unmarried father working out where you stand, which our page for unmarried parents covers
• an application has been made to bring your parental responsibility to an end

Advice early often removes the need for an application, because an agreement that is properly witnessed and recorded does the same job as an order.

How RakLAW Solicitors Can Help

We act for parents and step-parents on both sides of these applications from our office at 42 Shad Thames, London SE1 2YD, a short walk from Tower Bridge in Southwark. We will tell you who holds it for your child, whether an agreement is realistic, and what an application would involve.

Our family team offers a free 15-minute consultation. RakLAW is privately funded and does not offer legal aid. Our other children matters pages cover the related applications. Call 0203 345 2000, read our family law fees, or book an appointment with RakLAW Solicitors, the firm founded by solicitor Rakesh Prajapati.