Fears For Children At Risk As Care Order Applications Fall By A Third
Children at risk of abuse or neglect face even greater danger because of a new system designed to cut costs and speed up care proceedings, the Government has been warned.
Figures seen by The Times show that since the new system was introduced last September, the number of applications to take children into care in London has dropped by 30 per cent as local authorities struggled to make it work. London was one of a dozen areas – and the biggest – chosen to pilot the new system. The Government was unable to provide data for the other pilot areas.
In some London boroughs applications to courts for “care orders”, which are legally required to take children into local authority care, have fallen by 75 per cent since the pilot began.
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