Cafcass (the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) figures for April to June 2010 show that the number of care applications were the highest ever recorded for the individual months of April and May.
Compared with the same period in 2009, care applications were up 1.7 per cent, with 2,132 new applications in the quarter.
Alison Paddle, spokeswoman for Nagalro, the professional association for children’s guardians, told CYP Now that all children involved in family court cases need a guardian to represent them.
This is depsite Cafcass plans to introduce the "watching brief" system for non-urgent cases, in which a named practitioner would monitor proceedings by keeping in contact with a child’s solicitor, but would not be involved in court hearings.
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