Family Law

New figures released from Cafcass show that the court advisory body saw an 11% increase in the number of public law care cases they received during 2011-12.

Cafcass worked with 145,810 children and received 10,218 care applications, an 11% increase on 2010-11.

By the end of March 2012 99.3% of care cases were allocated to a Children's Guardian. 0.1% were unallocated and 0.7% were allocated on a duty basis.

Popularity of the Separated Parents Information Programmes grew as attendance increased from 13,000 to 18,279 adults.

Cafcass chief executive, Anthony Douglas, commented:  "As our performance has improved, so we have become more respectable - it is impossible to be credible when you are performing poorly. Whilst we know the quality of our work needs to improve further, we are confident our systems across the country, day in day out, are now safe and reliable. Our inspectors are finding this, and our internal audits find the same. I trust users of our service and Parliamentarians can have more confidence and a greater assurance about our work."