New figures show that for cases received by the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass) between April and August, the waiting time for a guardian to be appointed was 13.4 working days.
The government target is for guardians to be allocated within two days in 65 per cent of cases.
The figures, released in Parliament by children's minister Dawn Primarolo, add further fuel to concerns about the pressure caused by a rise in care applications following the high-profile Baby P trial.
They show that in total there were 916 cases as of 15 September awaiting allocation of a guardian, a figure that has since dropped to 721 as of 23 October. A year ago there was no backlog in cases waiting to come to court.
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