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Written question asked by Justin Tomlinson (Conservative) on Tuesday, 29 June 2010, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 1 July 2010. It was answered by Tim Loughton (Conservative) on Monday, 12 July 2010 on behalf of the CAFCASS.

Care Proceedings

Question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education how much was spent by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service on the provision of guardians in care proceedings in each of the last five years; and what proportion of its budget this represents in each such year.
Answer

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service's (CAFCASS's) funded expenditure for each year was:

Expenditure (£ million)
2009-10 132.449
2008-09 120.627
2007-08 108.550
2006-07 106.087
2005-06 98.613

These figures comprise CAFCASS's grant in aid funding from the Department for Education and additional funding from the Department for specific activities. In this spending review period (2008-11), this additional funding has been for Contact Point and Family Contact Services.CAFCASS's allocated programme resource budget for 2010-11 is £138.2 million (including a one-off allocation of £10 million for service improvement). This excludes additional funding from the Department for specific activities.How CAFCASS spend their allocated budget each year is an operational matter for CAFCASS. The chief executive of CAFCASS, Anthony Douglas, will respond by letter to the hon. Member and a copy of his response will be placed in the Libraries.Letter from Anthony Douglas, dated July 2010:"I am writing to you in response to Parliamentary Question that you tabled recently:""PQ005770: To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how much was spent by the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service on the provision of guardians in care proceedings in each of the last five years; and what proportion of its budget this represents in each such year.""Cafcass does not collect specific figures relating to how much is spent on the provisions of guardians in care proceedings. Cafcass practitioners work in both public and private law proceedings. Cafcass also utilises the services of approximately 300 self employed contractors, most of which, work as children's guardians in care cases.""Please note, there has been a significant increase in the past 18 months in care applications by local authorities and the total expenditure of Cafcass has also increased over the last 5 years, this is reflected in the table below."

Public law care requests Total expenditure of Cafcass (£ million)
2009/10 8,684 132.449
2008/09 6,496 120.627
2007/08 6,241 108.550
2006/07 6,786 106.087
2005/06 6,613 98.613

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
5770; 513 c562-3W
Session
2010-12
Subjects
Care proceedings Finance
Contains statistics
Yes
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk