Cafcass reports 4.8% fall in care order applications in 2018/19

Cafcass received a total of 13,536 care order applications between April 2018 and March 2019, down 4.8% compared with the previous financial year, the agency has said.

There were 14,223 applications in 2017/18 and 14,599 – a record – in 2016/17.

Cafcass issued a number of caveats for its monthly figures for 2018/19, saying that:

• a significant IT transition in June 2018 may have affected monthly totals for June;
• technical issues affecting court processes may have affected October’s monthly total; and
• it considered February’s monthly total (998) to be an outlier compared to recent years (the numbers of applications that month in the previous four years were all above 1,500).

In January this year the President of the Family Division said it was neither necessary nor healthy, “in these highly pressured times”, for the courts and the professionals to attempt to undertake ‘business as usual’.

In a section on well-being in his first View from the President’s Chambers since he succeeded Lord Justice Munby, Sir Andrew McFarlane warned: “For the time being, some corners may have to be cut and some time‐limits exceeded; to attempt to do otherwise in a situation where the pressure is sustained, remorseless and relentless, is to risk the burn‐out of key and valued individuals in a system which is already sparely manned in terms of lawyers, court staff and judges.”

He added that he wanted to acknowledge publicly that “we are currently in a situation that cannot be accommodated simply by working beyond what can reasonably be expected every now and again.”