Rise
in child abuse cases puts pressure on legal aid budget
by Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2521059,00.html
Times
- 28th December 2006
A large
rise in the numbers of children at risk of abuse is threatening
a fresh crisis for the cash-strapped legal aid system.
The cost
of court hearings over whether a child should be removed from his
or her home has soared by 62 per cent in five years, to £208
million last year in England and Wales.
Officials
are also predicting a further increase, which will add to pressure
on the £2 billion legal aid budget and cut funds for other
civil disputes.
Ministers’
concern about the rise in cases, which is shared by senior family
judges, has led to the establishment of a Whitehall working party
of officials from several departments.
There are
some 4,000 care cases a year, but in all there are 11,000 abuse-related
hearings that result in a court order. About 3,000 children a year
are removed from their homes.
Crispin
Passmore, the director of the Community Legal Service at the Legal
Service Commission, which runs the legal aid scheme, said: “This
is probably the fastest-growing area of the legal aid budget. The
volume of cases has gone up by 14 per cent and expenditure by over
60 per cent.”
Some 25,000
people received legal aid to be represented in care cases in 2005-06,
he said, with each case costing an average of £25,000. “If
this level of demand continues and we are faced with a demand for
another £100 million, there aren’t many places to get
it from.”
Mr Passmore
said that action was being looked at on several fronts: the delays
in proceedings, which take between 42 and 51 weeks to come to court;
inadequate preparation of cases; and the level of fees paid to child
care lawyers.
“The
level of protection that society demands is going up, and it is
very hard for local authorities to maintain a qual- ity service.
But we must make sure cases are prepared to the highest standard.
The level of service we provide to the kids is not negotiable.”
Caroline
Little, joint chairman of the Association of Lawyers for Children,
gave warning over the Government’s plans to tackle rising
demand by cutting fees paid to family lawyers.
“There
is a great danger of lawyers being forced out of the market. We
are like nurses. We do the job most people don’t ever want
to know about.”
Anthony
Douglas, chief executive of Cafcass, the Children and Family Court
Advisory and Support Service, confirmed the rise in public law cases.
But he insisted that social workers were not making overzealous
or wrong decisions. “Whenever we look at these cases, we rarely
find any that are wrongly taken . . . we don’t find a cadre
of children who should not be there.”
The rise
was of concern — not least because there were still about
5,000 children who were the subject of a care order but for whom
no suitable carer could be found. There was a move to try to place
more such children with extended family and friends rather than
relying on state care, be it a residential home or foster care,
he added. Such placements had “positive outcomes”, he
said.
