Parental responsibility

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Parental responsibility is the legal standing to make decisions about a child – their schooling, their medical treatment, their name, taking them abroad. It is not about who the child lives with or how much time they spend with each parent. Those are separate questions, and a parent can have full parental responsibility and still be arguing about both.

Who has it automatically

• The birth mother normally has parental responsibility automatically. Adoption and parental orders can change legal parenthood and responsibility.
• A father married to or in a civil partnership with the birth mother normally has it automatically. Later marriage or civil partnership can also confer it.
• For an unmarried father, joint birth registration in England and Wales on or after 1 December 2003 normally confers it. Earlier registrations and registrations elsewhere need separate checking. An agreement or court order can provide another route.
• Step-parents do not acquire it simply by marrying a parent. Fertility treatment, second female parents and surrogacy involve specific rules.

This guide concerns England and Wales. Check how parental responsibility was acquired rather than relying only on a name on a certificate. See the official guidance on who has parental responsibility.

How to get it

1. Jointly register the birth

If the birth has not been registered yet, registering it together gives the father parental responsibility from the start. If it has already been registered without him, the birth can be re-registered to add him, with the mother’s agreement.

2. A parental responsibility agreement

Where both of you agree, this is the simple route and it costs nothing. You complete the parental responsibility agreement form – there is a separate version for step-parents – and take it to your local family court, where it is signed and witnessed by a court officer. It is registered from there.

Both parents have to be willing. It cannot be done by one of you alone.

3. A court order

Where there is no agreement, you apply to the family court on form C1. The fee is £270, and Help with Fees can reduce or remove it on a low income. The court decides on the child’s welfare, and it does look at the commitment the applicant has shown to the child, the attachment between them, and the reasons for applying.

The court forms page lists the forms and the current fees for every family court application.

What it lets you do – and what it does not

With parental responsibility you are entitled to be consulted on the significant decisions, to be given information by schools and doctors, and to have a say in medical treatment, education, religion, a change of name, and taking the child abroad.

What it does not do is settle where the child lives or when they see each parent. It also does not mean either parent can act alone on the big decisions – the point of sharing it is that it is shared. Where two people with parental responsibility cannot agree, the disagreement is still a disagreement, and it has to be resolved somehow.

Where mediation fits

Mediation may help with disagreements about schooling, travel or practical arrangements where it is safe and suitable. The MIAM rules depend on the particular application and any exemption. A court will not simply send every family to mediation, and mediation cannot grant parental responsibility.

If what you need is the legal standing – the agreement signed, or the order made – mediation cannot grant that. But if the other parent’s worry is about being left out of decisions, an agreement reached in mediation about how decisions get made between you often answers the real question behind the application.

Where the dispute is about living arrangements and time rather than decision-making, that is a child arrangements order, and mediation about children is where most parents settle it.

Obtain individual advice where legal parenthood or parental responsibility is uncertain.

Questions parents ask