Guidance

MyHMCTS: How to apply for a family public law order

Guides for local authorities or their solicitors using MyHMCTS to make a family public law order application.

• From: HM Courts & Tribunals Service
• Published: 18 November 2022
• Last updated: 22 October 2024 — See all updates

Documents

Assign an external partner to manage the application

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Submit and serve an application

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Upload other documents, orders or bundles

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Add other legal representatives or a secondary local authority

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Make an additional or placement application

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Details

Use these guides to help with a family public law application using the MyHMCTS online service. You can you this service to apply for:

• care orders and interim care orders
• supervision orders and interim supervision orders
• emergency protection orders
• other orders under Part 4 of the Children Act 1989

If you a respondent’s legal representative, read our guidance on how to respond to a family public law order application.

If you are an intermediary, you cannot access MyHMCTS. The local authority will send you any court documents directly as required.

Before you start

Before you start, you might want to read the following MyHMCTS guidance:

• how to create a MyHMCTS organisation account – for example, to create, manage, submit and pay for online cases
• how to complete administration tasks – for example, sharing a case, assigning a case and filing a notice of change or acting

Published 18 November 2022
Last updated 22 October 2024 + show all updates

1. 22 October 2024

   Updated several of the guides with clarifications and new functionality

2. 6 March 2024

   Added information about confidential orders to submit and serve an application, upload other documents, orders or bundles, and make an additional or placement application.

3. 15 December 2023

   Added new screens and text to upload other documents guide for case file view

4. 29 August 2023

   Added subsection in main guide about urgent out of hours applications

5. 28 July 2023

   Added new help information to the guides

6. 13 July 2023

   Added a line about adding additional court bundles to the Upload other documents, orders or bundles guide

7. 13 June 2023

   Added a line to set expectation for intermediaries

8. 25 May 2023

   Added new subsection in additional and placement applications guide for replacing or adding documents after submission

9. 20 April 2023

   New guidance and screens following updates to the service

10. 9 March 2023

    Several updates to guides to make instructions clearer and improve signposting following feedback

11. 18 November 2022

    First published.