The figures, published in a briefing by the Observatory, reveal that 237 applications were made by local authorities and NHS trusts to the national DoL Court in July and August. That is around 40 per cent of the 579 total for the previous year, and more than double the total in 2018 (108).
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DoL applications are made to “authorise a residential placement of a young person in circumstances where their liberty may be restricted”.
The new court was launched in July by Sir Andrew McFarlane, president of the Family Division, in response to an increase in deprivation of liberty applications involving children since 2018.
Nuffield Family Justice Observatory was appointed to collect and publish data from the court, which is based at the Royal Courts of Justice.
Since the new court opened, there were 101 applications in July and 136 in August.
These were made by 96 different local authorities and five hospital or mental health trusts.
The data also includes details on the demographics of children and the regional variations of applicants to the national DoL Court.
The majority of children involved in the applications – 57 per cent – are aged 15 and above, with only four per cent aged 10 and 11. There is an even split between gender of applicants.
Local authorities in the North West of England accounted for a quarter of applications, followed by 15 per cent in London and 11.5 percent in the South West.
Alice Roe, researcher at the Observatory who looked at the data, said more data will be needed to ascertain whether the figures reflect a long-term increase in DoL applications.
“As information about the number of deprivation of liberty applications is not included in national published statistics, it is difficult to know if our findings from the first two months of the national DoL court are representative of an overall increase in applications,” said Roe.
“As we continue to collect data over the next few months we will be able to get a better picture of how the number of applications compares to previous records.”
The data collected relates to all applications issued by the national DoL Court and covers information included on the C66 application form – the form used to apply for an order under the high court inherent jurisdiction in relation to children. The data is extracted and recorded by court staff and analysed by the Observatory.
