To ask Her Majesty's Government how many family law cases were outstanding in each month of this year.
Answered on
4 January 2021
HM Courts and Tribunals Service publishes management information on workload and timeliness within the family courts on a monthly basis. This includes the number of outstanding cases which have been receipted but not yet disposed of at the end of each month.
The following table details the number of private family law (children) cases and public family law cases outstanding at the end of each month of this year. This presents the most current data at the time of responding.
Month | Private Family Law – outstanding cases | Public Family Law – outstanding cases |
January 2020 | 51,906 | 18,841 |
February 2020 | 53,844 | 19,367 |
March 2020 | 56,378 | 19,958 |
April 2020 | 58,819 | 19,626 |
May 2020 | 62,528 | 20,478 |
June 2020 | 66,271 | 21,156 |
July 2020 | 69,993 | 21,915 |
August 2020 | 73,126 | 22,390 |
September 2020 | 72,812 | 22,881 |
This information is extracted from HMCTS case management systems and as management information, it is not subject to the same quality assurance process as official statistics. The latest HMCTS management information report (October 2020) can be accessed at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/hmcts-management-information-october-2020.
The information relating to outstanding private family law case excludes applications made under the Family Law Act 1996. This information is not published.
Information about the volume of outstanding divorce applications each month is not published. However, this HMCTS management information report does contain other data about the management of divorce applications.