A preschool age child playing with plastic building blocks, January 24, 2016
AUSTERITY has played a role in record numbers of children being taken into care, the head of the family courts warned today.
Sir Andrew McFarlane said that he “would think there’s something wrong with society” given how busy the family court is.
The president of the Family Division in England and Wales said spending cuts since 2010 had left local authorities with fewer resources to do something other than go to court.
Sir Andrew told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “Over the course of decades our understanding of abuse and what is harmful to children has become far more sophisticated.
“Also I think it has to be said that with austerity, the resources available to local authorities to do something else other than come to court … are not there in the way that they were a decade ago.”
A pilot scheme allowing accredited journalists and legal bloggers to report on cases as they unfold in the family court system has been expanded to 16 courts across the country.
