The proportion of children in England and Wales subject to care proceedings who are having to wait more than a year to have their case resolved has increased more than 17-fold in the last seven years, a watchdog has found.
The average duration of proceedings brought by local authorities to protect a child from harm (known as public law cases) was 36 weeks last year, according to the National Audit Office (NAO). In 2014 the government set a time limit of 26 weeks but it has never been met.
In a report published on Wednesday, the NAO says the proportion of children waiting more than a year for a public law case to be resolved increased from 0.7% in January 2017 to 12% in December last year. The figures equate to approximately 70 and 1,200 children respectively.
The watchdog is urging the government to do more to tackle delays that can mean children waiting longer for permanent care and living or contact arrangements, increasing risk of harm, anxiety, instability and disrupted friendships or education.
Including private law cases, which involve parental disputes such as living or contact arrangements for their child, there were more than 4,000 children in England and Wales in family court proceedings lasting two years in December 2024.
Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the chair of the House of Commons public accounts committee, said: “Too many children are suffering as a result of delays to family court proceedings, which are currently still far too long. The longer a case remains unresolved, the more likely it is that there are further delays, increasing the risk of harm to children and driving up public costs.
“Responsibilities for family justice are fragmented, with no single body responsible for overall performance. Government has neither the right data to fully understand the causes or impacts of delays, nor does it have an assessment of the capacity required to manage the system efficiently.”
In December, nearly two-thirds of the 4,000 cases that had been open for 100 weeks or longer were in London and the south-east. London had an average duration of 53 weeks for cases brought by local authorities and 70 weeks for cases brought by parents.
Wales performed best, averaging 24 weeks and 18 weeks respectively. Where there were longer delays, this reflected issues such as lower judicial capacity in those areas, the NAO said.
There is no government time limit for private law cases, which took 41 weeks on average last year.
The watchdog said the impact of delays on costs was significant, as evidence and assessments needed to be updated. Average spending on legal aid for a case brought by a local authority doubled between 2018 and 2022 from approximately £6,000 to about £12,000 – an annual increase of £314m in legal aid spending.
Family courts have recovered much better than crown courts after the Covid-19 pandemic, with 47,662 family court cases outstanding (37,541 of them private law cases), down by more than a quarter since August 2021.
But Gareth Davies, the head of the NAO, said: “Many cases still take too long to complete and further action is needed to remove the barriers to a more efficient system, including poor-quality data and fragmented decision-making.”
A government spokesperson said it had inherited a justice system in crisis, adding: “We are working hard to improve their experience in the family courts further by expanding the successful pathfinder pilot, which has already reduced case times by 11 weeks, and investing £500m in early intervention. Cases are now moving faster.”
