A High Court ruling has reasserted the independence of children’s guardians from state control.

In a landmark judgment, Sir Nicholas Wall said the court-appointed guardians were a vital element in protecting children.

He told the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) that the organisation did not have the authority to remove guardians from cases before the court.

The issue arose in a case where local authority and Cafcass managers communicated between themselves, without speaking to the parents’ or child’s solicitors or to the court, to engineer the removal of a child’s guardian who had opposed the council’s interim care plan.

Wall said the process had been unfair on the child’s family. He added: ‘I yield to no one in my view that the guardian’s independence needs to be cherished.’

Nagalro, the body that represents children’s guardians, family court advisers and independent social workers, had intervened in the case and welcomed Wall’s ruling.

Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas said: ‘We welcome the judgment which reasserts the independence of Cafcass guardians and which did not find that we acted unlawfully.

'It also reinforces the importance, in life-changing cases like this, of individual guardians’ work being open to managerial scrutiny, as the work of all social workers is, and should be.’