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Residence Orders

Answer

The information requested is as follows.Tables 1 and 2, show for each of the last three calendar years, the number of applications made for residence orders where the applicant relationship to child was recorded as father or mother.

Table 1: Applications for section 8 Residence Orders under the Children Act 1989 by mothers or fathers in private law cases in the High Court or County Court in England and Wales, 2007 to 2009
	Private Law
	Mother	Father	Other relationship, or no information recorded	Total residence orders applied for
2007	12,597	13,276	4,003	29,876
2008	13,969	13,797	4,494	32,260
2009	15,456	14,637	4,515	34,608

Table 2: Applications for section 8 Residence Orders under the Children Act 1989 by mothers or fathers in public law cases in the High Court or County Court in England and Wales, 2007 to 2009
	Public Law
	Mother	Father	Other relationship, or no information recorded	Total residence orders applied for
2007	73	52	691	816
2008	53	26	440	519
2009	46	22	471	539

The figures reflect the number of applications made, counted by child. This means that an application was made in respect of two children will be counted twice. The figures may not exactly match previously published figures as they were produced using a more recent extract from the family court administrative data system and reflect any updates to information held in the meantime.The figures exclude applications made in Family Proceedings Courts as information on applicant relationship to child is not held centrally for all Family Proceedings Courts.It is not possible to determine the proportion of the applications which were successful as no information is held centrally on which person in the relevant case receives a residence order. However, the numbers of section 8 residence orders made in the County Court or High Court in England and Wales during 2007 and 2008, as published in the annual "Judicial and Court Statistics" report, are given in Table 3. Statistics on residence orders made in 2009 are not yet available and will be published in the next edition of the Ministry of Justice's "Judicial and Court Statistics" report in September 2010. Copies of these reports are available in the Library of the House and on the Ministry of Justice website at"http://www.justice.gov.uk/publications/judicialandcourtstatistics.htm"

Table 3: Section 8 Residence Orders made under the Children Act 1989 in the High Court or County Court in England and Wales, 2007 to 2008
	Private Law	Public Law
2007	29,724	379
2008	32,650	514

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

9; 510 c62-3W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Residence orders

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk