Children’s Order Quarterly Bulletin

July - September 2008 (Provisional Figures)

Table 1a: Applications entered and disposed
Table 1b: Applications entered and disposed by processing office
Table 1c: Applications entered and disposed
Table 2: Reasons for transfer [1]
Table 3: Total own motion orders
Table 4: Total interim orders
Table 5: Sitting times and applications disposed of by venue
Table 5: Sitting times and business disposed of in Northern Ireland
Table 6: Orders Made
Table 7a: Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal of cases by processing office
Table 7b: Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal of cases in Northern Ireland
Table 8: Age and gender of children
Appendix 1 - Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal by venue for Care Cases
Appendix 1 - Average time in weeks from lodgement to disposal for Care Cases
Appendix 2 - Average time in weeks spent at the court tier in which the case was finally disposed
Appendix 2 - Average time in weeks spent at the court tier in which the case was finally disposed

Summary

There were 971 applications entered during the period, of which:
102 = Public
869 = Private
There were 810 applications dealt with during the period, of which:
103 = Public
707 = Private
There were 84 cases transferred during the period.
Of the own motion orders made, 25% were in relation to Care issues.
The majority of interim orders made were in relation to Contact and Care issues.
Court time spent on Children Order business between July - September 2008:
Total time = 790 hours 21 minutes
Ave. sitting time = 2 hours 17 minutes
There were 1,935 orders made between July - September 2008.
The average waiting time in weeks between lodgement to disposal for public law cases was 32 weeks.
The average waiting time in weeks between lodgement to disposal for private law cases was 23 weeks.
There were 1,083 children involved in Children Order Proceedings during the period, of which 33% were under the age of five.

Figure 1: Number of applications received by court tier Figure 2: Reasons for Transfer

Table 1a: Applications entered and disposed

		Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
Private Law	Family Proceedings Court	799	629
	Family Care Centre	26	51
	High Court	44	27
	Total	869	707
Public Law	Family Proceedings Court	97	84
	Family Care Centre	1	13
	High Court	4	6
	Total	102	103

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

		Public Law		Private Law
		Number of applications entered	Number of disposals	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	0	0	2	1
	Ballymena	15	12	105	81
	Belfast	19	26	213	196
	Coleraine	0	0	0	1
	Craigavon	13	9	57	45
	Dungannon	16	9	43	34
	Larne	0	0	1	0
	Limavady	0	0	2	2
	Lisburn	3	1	83	44
	Londonderry	13	10	98	69
	Newry	7	6	86	74
	Newtownards	11	11	106	81
	Omagh	0	0	3	1
	Venue total	97	84	799	629
Family Care Centre	Craigavon	0	4	19	24
	Londonderry	0	1	1	4
	Belfast	0	7	1	21
	Dungannon	1	1	5	2
	Venue total	1	13	26	51
High Court	Matrimonial	1	0	8	1
	Office of Care & Protection	3	6	36	26
	Venue total	4	6	44	27

[1] 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

	Public Law		Private Law
	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals	Number of applications entered	Number of disposals
Northern Ireland	102	103	869	707

Table 2: Reasons for transfer [1]

Transferred from								Total
Transferred from		Urgency	Convenience	Gravity	Complexity	Case linked - Consolidation	Other	Total
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	0	0	0	0	1	2	3
	Armagh	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
	Ballymena	0	2	0	1	2	2	7
	Belfast	0	0	0	9	2	12	23
	Coleraine	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
	Craigavon	0	0	0	2	2	3	7
	Dungannon	0	0	0	2	0	0	2
	Larne	0	1	0	0	0	1	2
	Lisburn	0	0	0	4	1	6	11
	Londonderry	0	1	0	1	0	1	3
	Newry	0	0	0	6	1	0	7
	Newtownards	0	0	0	0	6	2	8
	Omagh	0	0	0	1	0	1	2
	Venue total	0	4	0	26	15	32	77
Family Care Centre	Belfast	0	0	0	0	1	2	3
	Craigavon	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
	Dungannon	0	0	0	1	0	0	1
	Londonderry	0	0	0	0	0	1	1
	Venue total	0	0	0	1	1	3	5
High Court	Office of Care and Protection	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
High Court	Venue total	0	0	0	0	0	2	2
Northern Ireland Total		0	4	0	27	16	37	84

Where a court tier / venue is omitted, this indicates a nil return for the period to date.
[1] Total number of reasons for transfer. There may be more than one reason for each case.

Table 3: Total own motion orders

	Own motion orders
Parental Responsibility	2
Contact: Permission	142
Contact: Refusal	0
Residence	50
Prohibited Steps	9
Specific Issues	18
Family Assistance	0
Care	149
Supervision	2
Education Supervision	0
Declaration of Parentage	0
Child Assessment	0
Emergency Protection	5
Extension of EPO	0
Recovery	0
Secure Accommodation	14
Article 53 Contract	0
Appointment of Guardian under Part XV	0
Contribution and other Financial	0
Non-Molestation Order	0
Occupation Articles	0
Article 56 Investigations	0
Exclusion Requirement	0
Other orders, applications etc	209
Total	600

Table 4: Total interim orders

	Interim orders
Parental Responsibility	5
Contact: Permission	1288
Contact: Refusal	0
Residence	235
Prohibited Steps	75
Specific Issues	12
Family Assistance	0
Care	765
Supervision	49
Education Supervision	0
Child Assessment	0
Emergency Protection	0
Extension of EPO	0
Recovery	0
Secure Accommodation	0
Article 53 Contract	0
Appointment of Guardian under Part XV	0
Contribution and other Financial	0
Non-Molestation Order	2
Occupation Articles	0
Article 56 Investigations	0
Exclusion Requirement	0
Other orders, applications etc	0
Total	2431

Table 5: Sitting times and applications disposed of by venue

		Total sitting time	Average sitting time	Total sittings
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	13:30	3:23	4
	Ballymena	35:35	2:44	13
	Belfast	184:06	3:10	58
	Coleraine	13:35	2:43	5
	Craigavon	25:30	2:08	12
	Dungannon	19:10	3:50	5
	Larne	7:25	1:04	7
	Lisburn	26:25	2:56	9
	Londonderry	84:05	4:00	21
	Newry	54:15	3:11	17
	Newtownards	72:31	2:01	36
	Omagh	46:45	3:20	14
	Lisburn@Craigavon	10:45	3:35	3
	Venue total	593:37	2:55	204
Family Care Centre	Belfast	84:23	1:32	55
	Craigavon	15:07	1:31	10
	Dungannon	3:24	1:08	3
	Enniskillen	0:21	0:21	1
	Londonderry	5:35	0:48	7
	Newry	4:00	4:00	1
	Omagh	0:19	0:10	2
	Venue total	113:09	1:26	79
High Court	Matrimonial	0:30	0:30	1
	Office of Care & Protection	83:05	1:19	63
	Venue total	83:35	1:18	64

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

	Total sitting time	Average sitting time	Total sittings
Northern Ireland	790:21	2:17	347

[1] Total sittings include both minority and majority sittings

Table 6: Orders Made

		Orders Made		Total
		By Consent	Other	Total
Orders Made	ADJOURN GENERALLY	0	6	6
	APPLICATION DISMISSED	0	1	1
	APPLICATION REFUSED	0	23	23
	C18 - FINAL ORDER	278	293	571
	CARE ORDER	8	26	34
	CASE WITHDRAWN	0	12	12
	CONTACT ORDER	331	141	472
	DECLARATION OF PARENTAGE	2	7	9
	DISCHARGE RESIDENCE ORDER	0	2	2
	DISCHARGE NON MOLESTATION OCCUPATION ORDER	0	1	1
	DISCHARGING A CARE ORDER	4	0	4
	DISMISS ORDER (CHILDREN ORDER)	0	7	7
	EDUCATION SUPERVISION ORDER	0	1	1
	EMERGENCY PROTECTION ORDER	2	8	10
	EMERGENCY PROTECTION ORDER - OUT OF HOURS	0	1	1
	LEAVE TO CHANGE SURNAME BY WHICH CHILD IS KNOWN	1	0	1
	LEAVE TO WITHDRAW	0	62	62
	ORDER FOR LEAVE OF COURT	0	38	38
	ORDER FOR RECOVERY OF A CHILD	0	1	1
	ORDER OR DIRECTIONS FINAL	31	36	67
	ORDER TERMINATING APPOINTMENT OF GAL	51	31	82
	OTHER ORDER	0	4	4
	PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITY ORDER	29	15	44
	PROHIBITED STEPS ORDER	20	20	40
	REFUSAL OF ARTICLE 3 CERTIFICATION	0	1	1
	RESIDENCE ORDER	214	95	309
	SECURE ACCOMMODATION ORDER	25	36	61
	SPECIFIC ISSUES ORDER	15	27	42
	STRIKE OUT	0	19	19
	SUPERVISION ORDER	7	3	10
Total		1018	917	1935

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

		Public law		Private law
		Average time weeks	Number of cases	Average time weeks	Number of cases
Family Proceedings Court	Antrim	0	0	2.4	1
	Ballymena	22.9	12	21.1	81
	Belfast	32.9	26	20.8	196
	Coleraine	0	0	11.1	1
	Craigavon	17.4	9	20.8	45
	Dungannon	21.1	9	24.1	34
	Larne	0	0	0	0
	Limavady	0	0	0.1	2
	Lisburn	13.9	1	18.1	44
	Londonderry	13.4	10	27.5	69
	Newry	35.1	6	19.8	74
	Newtownards	28.4	11	24.0	81
	Omagh	0	0	0.6	1
	Total	25.6	84	21.7	629
Family Care Centre	Belfast	57.3	7	49.3	21
	Craigavon	46.8	4	24.1	24
	Dungannon	26.3	1	8.4	2
	Londonderry	15.4	1	60.4	4
	Total	48.5	13	36.7	51
High Court	Matrimonial	0	0	248.9	1
	Office of Care & Protection	82.0	6	17.6	26
	Total	82.0	6	26.2	27

Nb 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

	Public law		Private law
	Average time weeks	Number of cases	Average time weeks	Number of cases
Northern Ireland	31.8	103	23.0	707

Nb 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	184	178	127	62	551
Female	169	165	140	51	525
Unknown	1	2	2	2	7
Total	354	345	269	115	1083

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	Ballymena	55.4	3
	Belfast	54.4	12
	Craigavon	48.7	3
	Dungannon	34.8	3
	Lisburn	0	0
	Londonderry	27.2	4
	Newry	35.6	4
	Newtownards	38.1	4
	Total	44.7	33
Family Care Centre	Belfast	85.0	4
	Craigavon	46.8	4
	Dungannon	26.3	1
	Londonderry	15.4	1
	Total	56.9	10
High Court	Office of Care & Protection	131.3	3
High Court	Total	131.3	3

Nb 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	53.0	46

Nb 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	0	2.4
	Ballymena	22.9	21.0
	Belfast	32.9	20.4
	Coleraine	0	11.1
	Craigavon	10.0	20.8
	Dungannon	21.1	24.1
	Limavady	0	0.1
	Lisburn	13.9	18.1
	Londonderry	13.4	27.5
	Newtownards	28.4	24.0
	Newry	35.1	18.7
	Omagh	0	0.6
	Total	24.8	21.4
Family Care Centre	Belfast	56.5	37.3
	Craigavon	33.3	17.0
	Dungannon	0	6.4
	Londonderry	15.4	43.5
	Total	41.9	27.0
High Court	Matrimonial	0	248.9
	Office of Care & Protection	80.4	17.0
	Total	80.4	25.6

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

	Public Law	Private Law
Northern Ireland	30.2	22.0