asked Her Majesty's Government:

How many applications for care orders under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 there have been since 1 May 2008; and how many in the period from May to October 2007; and what are the reasons for any difference; and [HL5811]

How many applications for care orders were made under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 between 1 April 2007 and 1 July 2007; and how many were made between 1 April 2008 and 1 July 2008; and [HL5812]

What assessment they have made of the effect of the increase in court fees for care orders under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 on the number of such applications. [HL5813]

Table 1 below shows the number of public law care and supervision applications under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989. A total of 6,200 applications were made from May to September 2007, and a total of 4,800 applications were made from May to September 2008. A drop in the number of applications was expected as revised statutory guidance for local authorities and a new practice direction, the Public Law Outline, were introduced across England and Wales from 1 April 2008.

Table 2 below shows the number of public law care and supervision applications under Section 31 of the Children Act 1989. A total of 3,700 applications were made between 1 April and 1 July 2007, and a total of 2,500 applications were made between 1 April and 1 July 2008.

There is no evidence that the decrease in the number of care applications is attributable to increased court fees. It is probable that the decrease has been caused by recent reforms to the care proceedings system. The Public Law Outline and revised statutory guidance issued to local authorities encourage early resolution and exploration of alternatives to care proceedings, where safe and appropriate to do so. A similar pattern of decline in the number of care and supervision applications was also noted when the public law protocol was issued in 2003.

Source:

Family Proceedings Courts: Manual Returns and HMCS FamilyMan

County Court: HMCS FamilyMan

Source:

Family Proceedings Courts: Manual Returns and HMCS FamilyMan

County Court: HMCS FamilyMan

Notes for table 1 and 2:

(1) Historically, there have been data-quality issues with figures for the Family Proceedings Courts, which were likely to be an undercount prior to April 2007. A new method of data collection was introduced in April 2007 which has improved the coverage and completeness of data. Any comparison with figures prior to April 2007 may be affected by the improved data recording.

(2) Figures relate to the number of children subject to each application. For example, an application relating to two children will be counted twice.

Figures have been rounded.

(3) The figures taken from the FamilyMan system are as at October 2008. Because the data are only downloaded on to the central system once a month, these will only include applications made up to the end of September 2008. The 2008 figures are provisional subject to future updates. September figures for FPCs do not include two courts.

(4) County Court figures exclude cases recorded on FamilyMan as transfers from other courts. Research undertaken on behalf of the Ministry of Justice has identified that some cases that have transferred from the Family Proceedings Court to the county court have been incorrectly recorded as new applications in the county court, thus inflating the number of new applications (see Masson et al, 2008).