Daily roundup 12 October: Care applications, Lowell Goddard, and child protection 'failures'

Numbers of applications for children to be taken into care are continuing to rise with 1,216 being made last month, compared with 985 in September 2015 - a rise of 23.5 per cent. Latest figures, published today by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), show that for the first six months of 2016/17 (April 2016 to September 2016) there were 7,438 applications, compared with 6,044 for the first six months of 2015/16 - an increase of 23.1 per cent.


A total of £80,000 in pay and allowances were handed to Dame Lowell Goddard when she quit as head of the inquiry into child sexual abuse, the Home Office has confirmed. The Guardian reports that the New Zealand judge receieved a severance payment of two months' salary as well as flights home when she resigned, just 18 months after being hired.


More than 2,300 alleged paedophiles were free to offend for more than a year because of failures at a specialist unit designed to protect minors, an inquiry has found. The Times reports that in 2012 the UK's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) was given a cache of intelligence from Canadian police that listed British suspects who had paid for videos thought to contain child pornography. A report by the Independent Police Complaints Commission said the centre failed to act on the information until late 2013, after Toronto police had contacted it for an update.


The Education Funding Agency (EFA) has announced it is terminating an academy chain's funding agreement. The BBC reports that the Durand Academy Trust runs an infant and junior school in Stockwell, south London, and a boarding school in Midhurst, West Sussex. The EFA said it has serious concerns about the financial management and governance of the trust.


Child victims in sex abuse cases should no longer be cross-examined in court or even have to attend to give evidence, a legal conference is to hear. The Herald Scotland reports that Scotland's most senior judge is expected to back calls for legal reform and the adoption of a Scandinavian model for trying child abuse cases which sees experts take evidence from children prior to any court case.