New Cafcass cases decreasing

Cafcass figures for September show a slow in total case demand although open active children’s cases remain high.

In September’s Cafcass report, total year-to-date figures reveal a decrease of 3.5% in new case demand compared to the same period last year. This also represents a decrease of 9.5% in public law cases and 1% in private law cases.

Despite the drop in new case demand, the number of open active children’s cases outstanding at the end of September remains at high levels, with a reported 35,861 cases still requiring closure. This is substantially higher (18.4%, 5,545 cases) than the number of open active cases at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, but only slightly higher (0.6% / 203 cases) than in September 2020. Cafcass have not commented on the reasons for outstanding high case loads in September’s report, but previous reports attribute this to the ongoing effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and generally high, new case demand.

In the month of September Cafcass received 4,913 new cases involving 7,304 children. Of these, 3,623 cases were in private law, and 1,290 cases in public law. Analysis of public law cases shows that 69.5% were cases where section 31 (care) was the lead application and involved 1,407 children, and 30.5% were public law cases where section 31 (care) was not the lead application, involving 570 children.

For the year-to-date period to September the top five application types received on Public Law cases which are not Care (s31), were; Discharge of Care Order (CA(s39(1))), Supervision (s31), Deprivation of Liberty, Adoption non-agency (RO), and Revocation of Placement (s24).