Spending on Court of Protection
Case reference FOI2026/01029
Received 30 April 2026
Published 22 May 2026
Request
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please tell me:
* The total number of Court of Protection welfare cases your council was involved in 2025
* If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
* The total amount spent by your council on Court of Protection welfare proceedings in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
* If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
* The total amount spent by your council on Court of Protection welfare proceedings where ‘P’ (the subject of proceedings/protected party) was an adult with learning disabilities and/or autism in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
* If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
* Of this, the total amount spent on Court of Protection proceedings involving a Deprivation of Liberty s21 MCA application in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
* And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
* And of this, the amount spent on Court of Protection proceedings involving a Deprivation of Liberty s21 MCA application where ‘P’ (the subject of proceedings/protected party) is an adult with learning disabilities and/or autism in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
* And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 I understand that under the FOI Act, I should be entitled to a response within 20 working days (no later than 20th May 2026).
Response
Further to our previous correspondence, your request has now been considered and the council’s response is set out below:
Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please tell me:
The total number of Court of Protection welfare cases your council was involved in 2025
If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
A: The figures below relate to all Court of Protection welfare and S21A cases that were commenced in each respective year.
|
2020 |
11 |
|
2021 |
12 |
|
2022 |
12 |
|
2023 |
17 |
|
2024 |
15 |
|
2025 |
19 |
The total amount spent by your council on Court of Protection welfare proceedings in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
A: The Service Area have advised that they don’t have figures for in house legal costs / expert fees recorded. In house employees don’t time record on individual cases so we are not able to give an indication of the hours worked per case, as the team do more than just S16/S21A case work.
Please therefore see below details of Counsel fees for each year, including VAT, which have been collated based on Purchase Orders raised and paid.
|
|
Counsel |
|
2020 |
£50k |
|
2021 |
£23.8k |
|
2022 |
£43.7k |
|
2023 |
£65.2k |
|
2024 |
£34.6k |
|
2025 |
£15.4k |
The total amount spent by your council on Court of Protection welfare proceedings where ‘P’ (the subject of proceedings/protected party) was an adult with learning disabilities and/or autism in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
A: This information is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004.
Staff would need to go into each case and review them individually to ascertain if they have LD/autism diagnosis. These are not diagnosis’ that ASC provide, but usually medically provided by GP / health clinician. Thereford each case would need checking through case notes/records to find the relevent details. Some will be fairly obvious to locate this information, whilst others will take time to read through depending on where this has been recorded and by who.
For the time frame requested there would be 86 cases to review, taking on average 20 minutes to check through, some being quicker and some being slower based on the above details. This would at a conservative estimate take at least 28 hours to complete. Where the Limit is exceeded Public Authorities are not obliged to supply the information requested by virtue of S12 of the Act. Please take this letter as a refusal notice under S17 of the Act.
* Of this, the total amount spent on Court of Protection proceedings involving a Deprivation of Liberty s21 MCA application in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
A: Please see the counsel fees included above, some cases swapped between being a section 16 welfare and a S21A, so the team have included the total figure for both as above.
And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
And of this, the amount spent on Court of Protection proceedings involving a Deprivation of Liberty s21 MCA application where ‘P’ (the subject of proceedings/protected party) is an adult with learning disabilities and/or autism in 2025, including in-house legal costs, legal fees for external lawyers and expert witnesses, and if possible, an estimate of staff time spend on cases
* And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
A: This information is not held in a form that would enable it to be located, retrieved and extracted within the Appropriate Time Limit which equates to 18 hours as defined by the Freedom of Information and Data Protection (Appropriate Limits and Fees) Regulations 2004. It is therefore withheld under Section 12 of the act, for the same reasons listed in question 3 above.
Documents
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