Care proceedings quicker with more disposals within 26 weeks: MoJ

The average time for public law care or supervision cases to reach first disposal was 41 weeks in April to June 2024, down 3 weeks from the same quarter in 2023, according to the latest data published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ).

Further, 32% of cases were disposed of within 26 weeks - up 3 percentage points compared to the same period in 2023.

This comes 20 months after the President of the Family Division, Sir Andrew McFarlane, relaunched the Public Law Outline (PLO). As part of the relaunch in January 2023, he outlined the need for practitioners to ensure that the statutory requirement of completing each public law children’s case within 26 weeks is met “once again”.

Last month McFarlane observed: “In contrast to the position prior to January 2023, where the direction of travel was very much towards cases taking longer and longer, with delay becoming ‘normalised’ within the system, all the signs are now going in the opposite direction. But progress is slow and unacceptable backlogs remain.”

The judge warned that some areas or regions might be struggling to achieve the “change of local culture” that was required by the relaunch, and that data had “consistently suggested” that this was the case in all three areas of London.

The MoJ’s Family Court Statistics Quarterly release also shows that 299 children were subject to applications to deprive them of their liberty between April to June 2024 in England and Wales.

Almost all of these children were teenagers, with 60% aged between 13 and 15 and 30% aged between 16 and 18 years.

According to the MoJ, between April and June 2024 there were 59 applications for secure accommodation orders to place children in a secure children’s home.

There were over five times the number of DoLs applications compared to secure accommodation applications.

Commenting on the data, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory said: “This reflects a growing trend where applications for DoL orders – which authorise the deprivation of a child’s liberty in an unregulated secure placement – vastly outnumber applications to place children in registered secure accommodation. There is severe shortage of places in secure children’s homes, with around 50 children waiting for a place on any given day.”

Looking at deprivation of liberty applications made under the Mental Capacity Act (concerning those aged 18 and above), the MoJ observed again that since the Supreme Court clarified the definition of deprivation of liberty in 2014 in the Cheshire West case, there has been a “significant increase” in the number of applications.

There were 1,831 applications relating to deprivation of liberty under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 made in the most recent quarter - an increase of 28% on the number made in the same quarter in 2023.

Lottie Winson