Record number of care cases puts courts under strain
Record numbers of care cases are putting ‘intense’ pressure on the family justice system, according to the head of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass).
Figures from HM Courts and Tribunals Service show that the number of care and supervision cases before the family courts has increased from around 12,000 at the start of 2009 to more than 20,000 in March 2011.
In addition, Cafcass statistics reveal the highest-ever numbers of care applications.
During 2010/11 there were a total of 9,180 care applications, up 4% on the 8,826 in 2009/10, which itself was a 36% increase on the previous year.
Care applications for all months during 2010/11 have been the highest ever recorded by Cafcass for individual months, except June and December 2010.
Between April and July 2011, Cafcass received 3,212 new applications, 7% higher than the number received in the same period last year.
While March 2011 saw the highest number of care applications recorded in a single month, with 892 applications.
Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas said: ‘Record numbers of care applications show that thresholds for intervention have shifted and that local authorities are ensuring that more vulnerable children are getting the protection they need from a spectrum of poor and sometimes catastrophic parenting.
‘However, the pressure is intense and affecting all parts of the family justice system, including the courts.’
Christina Blacklaws, Law Society Council member for child care, said the high number of applications was unsurprising, following a dip in cases after the introduction of the public law outline in April 2010, which set out a protocol for the management of public law cases.
She said: ‘Sadly, child abuse continues and all agencies are better trained to spot it. However, our family justice system is struggling to deal with the level of work.’
Blacklaws added that delays in cases being dealt with by the courts are ‘shameful’ with even relatively straightforward ones taking on average a year to resolve, due in part to cutbacks at HMCTS.
‘The family justice system is in meltdown, but government is ploughing on with its savage programme of cuts regardless,’ she added.
David Emmerson, family law consultant at Dagenham firm Milner Elledge, said one of the reasons for the increase was the fallout from the Baby P case.
‘Before the case there had been a drop in the number of applications, with an inevitable increase afterwards. Those cases are now coming through the system into the courts,’ he said.
Emmerson predicted that the increased trend in the number of cases would continue, which would put greater pressure on social services and Cafcass, calling into question the proposed cuts to those services.
Comments
Being a multicultural
Being a multicultural society, the figures on cultural background would be interesting and fairer reflection for the public
And ?
...this would prove what exactly for you ? From the tone I suspect this is to purely to confirm or deny your own prejudices..... or would statistics confirm that many in poorer areas have more family problems, surprise surprise ? Or that certain ethnic groups take far more responsibility than average for their kids ?
What harm can the statistics
What harm can the statistics do?
Those who are prejudiced will be anyway, those who aren't will merely be informed. Presumably the statistics will show where the necessary help is needed.
CAFCASS
I would be curious to find out if these claims are a way of CAFCASS 'justifying' why, in some instances, they seem to be making recommendations to the court which appear, prima facie, to have been 'pre-judged' for speed of resolution, inadequately researched, and which is causing a lot of anxiety and misery to the families involved - to say nothing of the long-term effect upon the children concerned. Race, class etc. all seem to be subject to the same somewhat dismissive 'no time for this case' treatment.
Re: the Baby P case, should history teach us anything, perhaps we should be mindful of the caveat that 'a big caseload is no excuse for incompetency'.
CAFCASS
As the President of the Family Division recently emphasised in the Court of Appeal, it is the court, and the court alone (not CAFCASS, Local Authorities, Parents, Experts or anyone else) that decides the outcome in care proceedings.
The duty of the parties, and the Children's Guardian (who is appointed directly by the court, not CAFCASS, which is the Guardian's employer), is to help the court reach a decision that the court believes, on the evidence, is in the best interests of the child/children involved. If there is a difference of professional opinion between the Guardian and CAFCASS management that must be made known to the court and the parties, and the reasoning for both opinions must be disclosed in full within the proceedings. The court will then decide whose opinion to accept.
CAFCASS does not have and never has had the power to decide the outcome in care proceedings.
Guardian's reports and recommendations in care proceedings are open to scutiny by the advocates for the parties and the court. The court is not obliged to follow the recommendations of the Children's Guardian, but if it departs from them full reasons must be given. If this does not happen then any appeal is likely to succeed on that ground alone.
If the workload of an individual Children's Guardian is such as to preclude a throrough analytical critique of the Local authority's application to the court, and/or ful and proper representation of the child's welfare interests, the Guardian is under a duty to inform the court of that fact.
Whilst there is reason to question CAFCASS management policy and the bureaucratic overload it has imposed on Children's Guardians since its creation in 2001, if there are any specific examples of inadequately researched recommendations made unduly hastily they should be made known to the allocated case management Judge in each particular case.
If this is said to be a widespread problem the Association of Lawyers for Children would welcome information from the Solicitors involved in the particular case.
It is not helpful for generalised unspecific criticism to be levelled publicly by way of an "impression".
@ And Question answered with
@ And
Question answered with a question, Only honesty and openess in the best interests of the children by reporting the ethniticity, otherwise the report is meaningless
A Fairer Reflection for the Public
A fairer reflection of what?
Exactly.
"...a fairer reflection of the amounts of taxpayers money we are wasting on these wastrel scroungers who cannot bring up stable families" (Note the quotation marks; not a direct quotation from our responsible tabloid press but may as well be treated as such).