Custody, care and control, and access: what they mean in a Singapore divorce

Three different orders

Singapore family law splits parental responsibility into three parts:

• Custody: the authority to make major, long-term decisions about the child, such as education, religion and significant healthcare.
• Care and control: which parent the child mainly lives with, and who handles the child's day-to-day needs, such as meals, school routines and transport.
• Access: the time the child spends with the parent who does not have care and control.

Custody

Joint custody is the order the courts most often make. Both parents are expected to consult each other and decide major matters together, which keeps both involved in the child's life. Sole custody, where one parent makes these decisions alone, is much less common, and tends to be considered where the parents cannot work together or in serious cases such as abuse.

Joint custody is about decisions, not time. It does not mean the child lives half the week with each parent.

Care and control

Care and control is usually given to one parent. The court can also order shared care and control, where the child lives with each parent for a similar amount of time, but there is no presumption that this is best. Whether it suits a particular family depends on things like the child's age and needs, the child's relationship with each parent, whether the parents can cooperate, and how well the child would cope with moving between two homes.

Access

The parent without care and control will normally have access. Access can cover weekdays, weekends, school holidays, public holidays and festive occasions, and sometimes overseas trips. Where there is a concern about the child's safety, or the relationship needs support to rebuild, the court can order supervised access.

How the court decides

Under the Women's Charter, the child's welfare is the paramount consideration. The court is not there to reward one parent or punish the other for what happened in the marriage, and a parent who was a poor spouse may still be a good parent. Having a higher income does not by itself make a parent more likely to get care and control.

The court looks at the whole picture, which can include:

• Who has been the child's main caregiver, and the child's existing routine.
• The relationship between the child and each parent.
• Each parent's ability to meet the child's emotional and developmental needs.
• Keeping siblings together.
• The child's own views, where the child is old enough to express an independent opinion. These are taken into account but do not decide the matter.

Agreeing on arrangements and changing them later

Parents are encouraged to agree on these arrangements themselves, and set them out in a parenting plan for the court. The Mandatory Co-Parenting Programme and court mediation are designed to help with this.

Children grow and family lives change, so orders about custody, care and control and access can be varied later through a court application. The court will weigh the request against the child's welfare and the value of stability in the child's routine.