Children deprived of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction – MoJ

The Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has published information about the number of children subject to applications to deprive them of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction of the high court (DoLs applications) in their Family Court Statistics Quarterly release.

The statistics reveal that 388 children were subject to applications to deprive them of their liberty between July to September 2023. This marks the first time that data about DoLs applications has been included in national administrative data.

Over the past few years, the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory (Nuffield FJO) – alongside the Children’s Commissioner for England and other organisations – have been calling for information about the number of children subject to these applications to be included in national administrative data.

There were 388 applications, relating to 388 individual children, for DoL orders in the high court between July and September 2023. This compares to 358 applications (incl. 5 repeats) over the same period last year – according to FJO data. This represents a slight increase – of 30 applications – but suggests the number of children subject to DoL applications is similar to the same period last year.

Over the same period (July to September 2023), there were 151 applications for secure accommodation orders to place children in a secure children’s home. There was approximately 2.5 times the number of DoLs applications, compared to secure accommodation applications.

The most applications were made by local authorities in London (20.1%), followed by the South East (18.6%), and the North West (16.5%). This compares to data collected by the FJO, from July 2022 to June 2023, which showed that just over a fifth (21.2%) of all applications were made by local authorities in the North West of England, followed by 16.8% of applications from local authorities in London, and 11.8% from local authorities in the South East.

Just under half of children (48.2%) were aged between 13-15 years, a quarter (27.3%) were aged between 16 and 18, and 7.2% were 12 or under. Data was missing for 17.3% of children. Data previously published by the FJO has shown that the majority of children subject to DoLs orders were 15 and above.

Just over half of all children were female (52.3%), 44.4% were male, and 3.1% of children identified as “other”. This data release does not tell us why the DoL application was made, the ethnicity of children subject to applications, or whether a DoL order was ultimately made.