More than 100 safeguarding cases before Government lawyers

Thursday 10 September 2020

The number of child safeguarding cases referred to the Government's lawyers exceeded 100 for the first time last year.

In total, 102 cases were passed on to the Law Officers' Department’s safeguarding team in 2019. This figure has been in the high 90s since 2016 following a change in procedure.

The figure was included in the Law Officers’ annual report for last year, which has just been published.

It reveals that there was a significant increase in referrals relating to specific children in 2016 and this trend continued into 2019 and is expected to carry on this year.

The increase is, in part, down to the Children’s Service adopting a “pre-proceedings process”, which is designed to avoid a case going to court.

The report states: “The process is triggered when the Children’s Service is considering issuing care proceedings and is designed to ensure that the child and family are clear about the nature of the concerns and about what is expected of them to avoid care proceedings being issued. 

The Law Officers' Department is led by the Attorney General, Mark Temple.

“During 2019 there were nine new cases in pre-proceedings, of which three resulted in proceedings being issued, three were stepped down and three continued in to 2020. This means that the process has been successful in avoiding the need for some children to be made subject to care proceedings.”

Last year, there were 31 cases in care proceedings, compared to 42 in 2018 and 37 in 2017. 

Of the 23 final care proceeding hearings in 2019, 11 children were placed with their parents, three were placed with extended family members, four were subject to a final care order, and five were adopted.

This was lower than 2018, when 12 children were placed with their parents, five went to extended family, nine were subject to a final court order and another nine were adopted.

Identifying other actions of note in 2019, Attorney General Mark Temple highlighted the confiscation of US$17m in relation to funds held by the Truk Settlement, which had links to US organised crime. This resulted in US$11m going into the Island’s Criminal Offences Confiscation Fund and the rest being shared between three charities, one of them based in Jersey.

The report also reveals that the States passed just 15 laws in 2019 compared to 25 in 2018, 27 in 2017, the same number in 2016 and 22 in 2015.

The States Assembly passed just 15 laws in 2019, a 40% decrease on the previous year.

The Law Officers' Department provides legal advice to the Government, the States Assembly and the Crown, as well as an independent public prosecution service.

It also protects the interests of the Crown and Government in civil proceedings, helps safeguard children and adults at risk and assists overseas law enforcement agencies by making and receiving requests for information. it has a team of 84 people, led by the Attorney General, and costs around £8m a year to run.