Parental Responsibility (PR) is the key to the Children Act 1989. Any adult who
has PR can make any decision about a child's welfare. If there is more than one
such person, any of them can decide : if they don't agree, then a Court may have
to decide for them.
The mother of a child will always have Parental Responsibility and cannot
lose it save by adoption of the child/children. Exactly the same applies to a
named father. It is now nearly 20 years since the Children Act and society has
gradually recognised that not all children grow up in 'normal' married family.
Under the 1989 Act, an unmarried father would only acquire Parental
Responsibility if he was given it by the mother via a Parental Responsibility
Agreement, which had to be registered at a court or by a Court Order.
The Adoption and Children Act 2002 recognised that it should not be necessary
for an unmarried father to go through these formalities in order to be
responsible for this children. The father of any child whose birth was
registered from 1st December 2003 automatically has Parental Responsibility if
his name is on the birth certificate. This is not retrospective and the birth
cannot now be re-registered.
The Government has proposed that, at some stage in the future, fathers should
be compelled to join in registration of the birth - a proposal that rather
misses the point that registration is the responsibility of the mother in the
first place.
The Children and Adoption Act 2006 has provisions already in place,
permitting step-parents, who are married or civil partners (but not unmarried)
to acquire Parental Responsibility by a Court application or agreement.
Meanwhile a grandparent or other adult with a Residence Order automatically has
PR as well.