In July 2022 the President of the Family Division launched the national deprivation of liberty court. Based at the Royal Courts of Justice, it deals with all new applications seeking authorisation to deprive children of their liberty under the inherent jurisdiction and will run for a 12-month pilot phase initially. The Nuffield Family Justice Observatory was invited to collect and publish data on these applications.
Since July, there have been 568 new applications. 20 of these applications were ‘repeat’ applications within the same case. There were 109 applications in the most recent month, November.
A total of 552 children have been subject to deprivation of liberty applications at the national DoLs court from 4 July (including applications that relate to multiple children).
The applications were made by 130 different local authorities and 7 hospital or mental health trusts. Just over a fifth (21.4%) of all applications were made by local authorities in the north-west of England, followed by 16.9% of applications from local authorities in London. Local authorities in the north-east have made the fewest number of applications (3.2% of the total).
