Fees for court-appointed guardians,of €125 an hour were agreed after an informal consultation between Tusla and the guardians, a report from the Comptroller and Auditor General has said.
The C&AG’s Report for 2015 said the per hour rate for guardians in Northern Ireland was €40 per hour plus €24 for travel time, and in England and Wales was €42 per hour plus €42 per hour for travel time. In Scotland, a flat fee of €500 per case was paid.
It noted, in other jurisdictions, governing bodies incurred other additional costs, not incurred in Ireland, and Irish guardians were not paid for their travel costs. It also noted the service was regulated in other jurisdictions.
Known as Guardians ad Litem, guardians are appointed by judges to represent the voice and best interests of children in State care cases.
The report found guardians cost €9.1 million last year, with an average cost per case of more than €10,850.
Guardians’ legal costs, when they were represented in court cases by solicitors or barristers, came to €5.9 million. In one case, legal costs were more than €600,000, while most cases cost up to €50,000.
Children’s charity Barnardos supplied 31, the majority of guardians, in 2015. The Independent Guardian Ad Litem Agency supplied 13 and there were 21 other individuals and small groups, the report found.
It said there was no national panel or complete list of practitioners available to the court when selecting a guardian, though in Dublin CVs are accepted from potential guardians and a database is maintained. The choice of appointment is made by the presiding judge.
The report said the C&AG examination team sought data on the number of guardians appointed, but the information was not recorded by the Courts Service and could not be collated.
The team also sought to establish an average caseload per guardian, and received unverified figures from agencies which showed an average caseload of 10.
Tusla, the Child and Family Agency, which pays the guardians’ fees, fixed the rate at €125 an hour for time spent in court, writing court reports, dealing with correspondence, meeting with the child, and observing interactions with the child. The fee was set after an “informal consultation” and there was “no documentary evidence” of the analysis made to reach the figure.
The report found Tusla carried out “reasonableness checks” of invoices submitted by guardians, but there was a risk potential over-claiming would not be detected.
The C & AG’s report concluded there was no complete record of the number of cases guardians are appointed to or the average hours they work per case.
It recommended that Tusla use the information available to develop figures, including on the average cost per case and average case load to identify outliers.
It also said regulation of guardians could help to ensure a quality, standardised service. And it recommended the Department of children should consider a tendering process for legal representatives of guardians.
