Freedom of information response
Deprivation of Liberty Orders
On the 22 May 2024 the BBC published an article relating to the stories of young people who had been subject to Deprivation of Liberty Orders: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9xxyl3gp39o#:~:text=Deprivation%20of%20Liberty%20applications%20for%2 18s%20in%20England%20have%20risen&text=Experts%20say%20the%20use%20of,to%2023%20in%20the%20f
This request is to seek statistical information on Thurrock Council's use of Deprivation of Liberty Orders in the course of it discharging its corporate parenting responsibilities.
Can you provide data and/or numbers and/or statistics, for the period of the start of the 2019 calendar year to the
present day:
- The number of Deprivation of Liberty Orders that Thurrock Council applied to the Family Courts for, and
deriving from that:
-- The number of approved applications
-- The number of refused applications
-- The number of withdrawn applications
For the number of approved applications, can you provide data and/or numbers and/or statistics on:
- The average time length of use of a Deprivation of Liberty Order, as well as providing the shortest time and the
longest time
- The average age of the subject of the Deprivation of Liberty Order, as well as providing the youngest age and
the oldest age
- The gender ratio of all subjects of Deprivation of Liberty Orders, expressed as a percentage
If the request is too large, I am willing to be consulted on what can be omitted or reducing the time frame. If this data is not kept by Thurrock Council, could you please provide a reason as to why this data is not captured as part of Thurrock Council's governance and monitoring regime.
- The number of Deprivation of Liberty Orders that Thurrock Council applied to the Family Courts for
From 2021, 30 DOLS cases were applied for.
(The cases relate to one child but there may have been several applications with a number of Deprivation of Liberty orders made.)
- The number of approved applications
Of the 30 DOLS cases, 29 were approved.
- The number of refused applications
1
- The number of withdrawn applications
0
For the number of approved applications, can you provide data and/or numbers and/or statistics on:
- The average time length of use of a Deprivation of Liberty Order, as well as providing the shortest time and the longest time
Of the number of cases approved, the average length of time (from Date Order Made to Date Order Expires) was 302.5 days.
The shortest time was 14 days
The longest time was 834 days
- The average age of the subject of the Deprivation of Liberty Order, as well as providing the youngest age and the oldest age
As at the Date Order Made, the average age was 14.6
The youngest age was 11
The oldest age was 17
- The gender ratio of all subjects of Deprivation of Liberty Orders, expressed as a percentage
Of the subjects for which applications were made (30), 19 were male (63.3%) and 11 were female (36.7%).