During 2024, there were 1,280 DoL order applications via the courts to detain children compared with 1,368 made in 2023, latest government figures for England and Wales show.
The figures have been revealed in the government’s final quarterly family court statistics of 2024. It shows that there were 321 applications – relating to 321 individual children – for DoL orders in the high court between October and December 2024.
The Nuffield Foundation’s Family Justice Observatory (FJO) said that while there has been a dip in the number of DoL orders issued, the figures reflect “a growing trend” to use them due to a “severe shortage of places in secure children’s homes”.
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