On 3 November 2017, CAFCASS reported their latest figures for October 2017 in respect of the demand for CAFCASS in private law children cases. The report showed an increase in demand of 8.5% from the year 2015 to 2016 (there being 40,571 cases in 2016 to 2017).
CAFCASS also reported receiving 25,438 cases in the period from April to October 2017 – an increase of 6.8% from the same period in the previous year.
However, looking at the 2015/2016 and 2016/2017 figures, they are still somewhat lower than as they were in 2013/2014.
It will be interesting to see how the demand for CAFCASS changes in 2018.