Children Order Bulletin January to March 2011 (Provisional Figures)

Summary

During January – March 2011:

There were 1,320 applications (Fig 1) entered during the period, of which:
161 = Public
1,159 = Private

Figure 1: Number of applications received by court tier
Family Proceedings 92%

Family Care Centre 2%

High Court 6%
There were 1,236 applications dealt with during the period, of which:
145 = Public
1,091 = Private

Figure 1: Number of applications received by court tier
Family Proceedings	92%
Family Care Centre	2%
High Court	6%

There were 192 cases transferred during the period with 202 reasons for transfer (Fig 2).

Figure 2: Reasons for Transfer
Complexity	120
Consolidation	39
Convenience	3
Gravity	7
Jurisdiction	18
Returned to Lower Court	3
Separate Representation for Child	3
Urgency	1
Point of Law	6
Other	2

Of the own motion orders made, 12% were in relation to Contact issues.
The majority of interim orders made were in relation to Contact (2,420) and Care (1,256) issues.
Court time spent on Children Order business between January and March 2011:
Total time = 1249 hours 05 minutes
Average sitting time = 2 hours 25 minutes
There were 2,589 orders made between January and March 2011.
The average waiting time in weeks from lodgement to disposal for public law cases was 31 weeks.
The average waiting time in weeks between lodgement to disposal for private law cases was 25 weeks.
There were 1,527 children involved in Children Order Proceedings during the period, of which 40% were under the age of five.

Table 1a: Applications entered and disposed

		Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
Private Law	Family Proceedings Court	1072	949
	Family Care Centre	26	74
	High Court	61	68
	Total	1159	1091
Public Law	Family Proceedings Court	146	93
	Family Care Centre	3	28
	High Court	12	24
	Total	161	145

Private law = residence, contact, specific issues, prohibited steps, parental responsibility, financial contribution, guardianship, family assistance, non-molestation and occupation orders

Table 1b: Applications entered and disposed by processing office

		Number of applications entered	Number of disposals	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
		Public Law		Private Law
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	34	12	126	83
	Armagh	0	0	0	0
	Ballymena	0	4	6	27
	Bangor	0	0	0	0
	Belfast	40	27	314	295
	Coleraine	0	0	11	9
	Craigavon	11	6	75	49
	Downpatrick	0	0	0	0
	Dungannon	13	18	77	77
	Larne	0	0	10	5
	Limavady	0	0	0	0
	Lisburn	7	2	93	84
	Londonderry	8	5	101	87
	Magherafelt	0	0	2	1
	Newry	11	6	114	105
	Newtownards	22	13	142	126
	Omagh	0	0	1	1
	Venue total	146	93	1072	949
Family Care Centre	Belfast	2	19	16	45
	Craigavon	1	7	8	21
	Dungannon	0	0	1	2
	Londonderry	0	2	1	6
	Venue total	3	28	26	74
High Court	Royal Courts of Justice	12	24	61	68
High Court	Venue total	12	24	61	68

Private law = residence, contact, specific issues, prohibited steps, parental responsibility, financial contribution, guardianship, family assistance, non-molestation and occupation orders.

Table 1c: Applications entered and disposed

	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
	Public Law		Private Law
Northern Ireland	161	145	1159	1091

Table 2: Reasons for transfer [1]

Transferred from		Complexity	Consolidation	Convenience	Gravity	Jurisdiction	Returned to Lower Court	Separate Representation for Child	Urgency	Point of Law	Public Interest	Other	Total
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Armagh	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Ballymena	27	4	0	4	3	0	1	0	0	0	0	39
	Belfast	28	16	0	0	4	0	2	1	1	0	0	52
	Coleraine	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Craigavon	4	1	0	0	2	0	0	0	2	0	0	9
	Downpatrick	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Dungannon	4	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	5
	Larne	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Lisburn	21	1	0	1	6	0	0	0	0	0	0	29
	Londonderry	13	5	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	19
	Newry	3	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	4
	Newtownards	8	4	3	0	1	0	0	0	2	0	0	18
	Omagh	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Venue total	108	31	3	7	17	0	3	1	5	0	0	175
Family Care Centre	Belfast	2	3	0	0	1	2	0	0	1	0	0	9
	Craigavon	5	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	8
	Dungannon	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
	Londonderry	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2
	Venue total	12	6	0	0	1	2	0	0	1	0	0	22
High Court	Office of Care and Protection	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	2
	Matrimonial Office	0	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	2	3
	Venue total	0	2	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	0	2	5
Northern Ireland Total		120	39	3	7	18	3	3	1	6	0	2	202

[1] Total number of reasons for transfer. There may be more than one reason for each case. There were 192 cases transferred during the period.

Table 3: Total own motion orders

	Own motion orders
Parental Responsibility	4
Contact: Permission	32
Contact: Refusal	0
Residence	28
Prohibited Steps	6
Specific Issues	0
Family Assistance	1
Care	48
Supervision	0
Education Supervision	0
Declaration of Parentage	3
Child Assessment	5
Emergency Protection	0
Extension of EPO	0
Recovery	0
Secure Accommodation	1
Article 53 Contract	0
Appointment of Guardian	57
Contribution and other Financial	0
Non-Molestation Order	0
Occupation Articles	0
Article 56 Investigations	0
Exclusion Requirement	0
Ex Parte Application refused	0
Other orders, applications etc	85
Total	270

Table 4: Total interim orders

	Interim orders
Parental Responsibility	7
Contact: Permission	2420
Contact: Refusal	0
Residence	429
Prohibited Steps	131
Specific Issues	22
Family Assistance	0
Care	1256
Supervision	70
Education Supervision	0
Child Assessment	0
Emergency Protection	0
Extension of EPO	0
Recovery	0
Secure Accommodation	51
Article 53 Contract	0
Appointment of Guardian	0
Contribution and other Financial	0
Non-Molestation Order	8
Occupation Articles	0
Article 56 Investigations	0
Exclusion Requirement	0
Other orders, applications etc	0
Total	4394

Table 5a: Sitting times disposed of by court venue

		Total sitting time	Average sitting time	Total sittings
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	31:10	03:54	8
	Ballymena	00:00	00:00	0
	Ballymena@Antrim	32:55	02:45	12
	Belfast	172:30	03:12	54
	Coleraine	28:55	03:37	8
	Craigavon	37:26	02:20	16
	Dungannon	63:15	05:45	11
	Larne	10:05	02:01	5
	Limavady	04:20	04:20	1
	Lisburn	46:25	02:27	19
	Londonderry	76:30	03:50	20
	Magherafelt	00:05	00:05	1
	Newry	52:10	03:29	15
	Newtownards	77:45	02:06	37
	Omagh	51:55	04:43	11
	Venue total	685:26	03:09	218
Family Care Centre	Armagh	15:00	03:45	4
	Belfast	197:22	02:19	85
	Craigavon	98:43	04:56	20
	Dungannon	03:14	00:49	4
	Enniskillen	05:08	01:43	3
	Londonderry	17:52	00:54	20
	Omagh	00:34	00:34	1
	Venue total	337:53	02:28	137
High Court	Royal Courts of Justice	225:46	1:24	161
High Court	Venue total	225:46	1:24	161

Table 5b: Sitting times and business disposed of in Northern Ireland

	Total sitting time	Average sitting time	Total sittings
Northern Ireland	1249:05	02:25	516

[1] Total sittings include both minority and majority sittings

Table 6: Orders Made

		By Consent	Other	Total
		Orders Made		Total
Orders Made	Adjourn Generally	0	5	5
	Appointment of Guardian	0	0	0
	Article 20 Non-Molestation Order	0	3	3
	Article 53 Contact with a Child in Care	0	20	20
	Care Order	47	72	119
	Contact Order	643	172	815
	Declaration of Parentage	33	9	42
	Discharging a Care Order	6	3	9
	Discharge Contact Order	3	7	10
	Discharge Emergency Protection Order	0	1	1
	Discharge Non Molestation Occupation Order	0	0	0
	Discharge Prohibited Steps Order	4	1	5
	Discharge Residence Order	4	1	5
	Dismiss Order (Children Order)	0	59	59
	Education Supervision Order	0	6	6
	Emergency Protection Order	3	27	30
	Emergency Protection Order - Out of Hours	0	2	2
	Ex-Parte Application Refused	0	0	0
	Extension of an Emergency Protection Order	2	2	4
	Family Assistance Order	2	1	3
	Financial Provision	0	4	4
	Leave to change surname by which child is known	4	0	4
	Leave to remove Child from the UK	0	3	3
	Leave to withdraw	137	67	204
	Non Molestation Order	0	1	1
	Order of No Order (Final Order)	33	27	60
	Order for Leave of Court	0	27	27
	Order or Directions Final	0	0	0
	Order terminating appointment of GAL	92	37	129
	Other Order	35	231	266
	Parental Responsibility Order	54	22	76
	Proceedings dismissed without prejudice (Final Order)	26	28	54
	Prohibited Steps Order	13	42	55
	Recovery of a Child	1	3	4
	Refusal of Article 3 Certification	0	2	2
	Residence Order	323	122	445
	Secure Accommodation Order	5	4	9
	Specific Issues Order	27	9	36
	Strike out	19	32	51
	Supervision Order	3	18	21
Total		1519	1070	2589

Table 7a: Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal of cases by processing office

		Average time weeks	Number of cases	Average time weeks	Number of cases
		Public law		Private law
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	8.5	12	10.8	83
	Armagh	0	0	0	0
	Ballymena	38.8	4	39.4	27
	Bangor	0	0	0	0
	Belfast	23.9	27	22.8	295
	Coleraine	0	0	18.3	9
	Craigavon	10.3	6	21.0	49
	Downpatrick	0	0	0	0
	Dungannon	30.4	18	19.8	77
	Larne	0	0	3.9	5
	Lisburn	0.6	2	27.7	84
	Limavady	0	0	0	0
	Londonderry	25.7	5	23.7	87
	Magherafelt	0	0	0	1
	Newry	38.7	6	20.7	105
	Newtownards	9.5	13	29.5	126
	Omagh	0	0	0	1
	Total	21.5	93	22.9	949
Family Care Centre	Belfast	44.3	19	38.1	45
	Craigavon	48.0	7	48.7	21
	Dungannon	0	0	125.6	2
	Londonderry	84.1	2	51.3	6
	Total	48.1	28	44.5	74
High Court	Royal Courts of Justice	48.3	24	30.6	68
High Court	Total	48.3	24	30.6	68

N.B. Cases disposed will include time spent at the lower court tier.

Table 7b: Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal of cases in Northern Ireland

	Average time weeks	Number of cases	Average time weeks	Number of cases
	Public law		Private law
Northern Ireland	31.1	145	24.8	1091

N.B. Cases disposed will include time spent at the lower court tier.

Table 8: Age and gender of children

	0-4	5-8	9-12	13-16	Total
Male	338	219	184	88	829
Female	276	202	151	65	694
Unknown	3	0	0	1	4
Total	617	421	335	154	1527

Appendix 1 - Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal by venue for Care Cases

		Average time in weeks	Number of cases
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	25.0	1
	Ballymena	38.8	4
	Belfast	35.6	11
	Craigavon	46.6	1
	Dungannon	42.2	12
	Lisburn	0	0
	Londonderry	85.4	1
	Newtownards	12.4	4
	Newry	56.6	4
	Total	39.1	38
Family Care Centre	Belfast	51.1	14
	Craigavon	54.5	6
	Dungannon	0	0
	Londonderry	108.0	1
	Total	54.8	21
High Court	Office of Care & Protection	68.8	12
High Court	Total	68.8	12

N.B. Cases disposed will include time spent at the lower court tier. This table includes all care applications irrespective of the order made.

Appendix 1 - Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal for Care Cases

	Average time weeks	Number of cases
Northern Ireland	48.8	71

N.B. Cases disposed will include time spent at the lower court tier. This table includes all care applications irrespective of the order made.

Appendix 2 - Average time in weeks spent at the court tier in which the case was finally disposed

		Public Law	Private Law
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	8.5	10.8
	Armagh	0	0
	Ballymena	38.8	38.8
	Bangor	0	0
	Belfast	23.9	22.5
	Coleraine	0	18.3
	Craigavon	10.3	21.0
	Downpatrick	0	0
	Dungannon	30.4	19.8
	Larne	0	3.9
	Limavady	0	0
	Lisburn	0.6	27.7
	Londonderry	25.7	23.7
	Magherafelt	0	0
	Newry	38.7	20.4
	Newtownards	9.5	29.5
	Omagh	0	0
	Total	21.5	22.7
Family Care Centre	Belfast	35.2	21.8
	Craigavon	43.8	29.9
	Dungannon	0	6.9
	Londonderry	47.8	28.5
	Total	38.2	24.2
High Court	Royal Courts of Justice	37.9	25.9
High Court	Total	37.9	25.9

Appendix 2 - Average time in weeks spent at the court tier in which the case was finally disposed

	Public Law	Private Law
Northern Ireland	27.4	23.0