Please provide the following information:
1) The total number of Court of Protection welfare cases your council was involved in 2025
2) If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
3) 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
4) If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
5) 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
6) If possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
7) 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
8) And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
9) 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
10) And if possible, please also answer this question for the following years: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024
In response to question 1 – 10, section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 makes provision for public authorities to refuse requests for information where the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit, which for local government is set at £450 or 18 hours of officer time.
The information requested is not held centrally and is contained within individual legal case files. To respond to your request, the Council would be required to locate, retrieve and review each case file to extract the relevant information, including case type, associated costs, time on each case, and whether the adult has a learning disability or autism, or both.
For the 2025/26 year, there are approximately 215 cases. A conservative estimate is that it would take approximately 20 minutes per case to locate and retrieve the requested information. This equates to over 71 hours of officer time.
In addition, the information requested for the years 2020/21 to 2024/25 is held on a legacy system and would also require manual retrieval. Assuming similar case volumes, this would involve reviewing a further approximately 1,075 case files, equating to over 358 hours of officer time. The total cost of compliance with this request would therefore significantly exceed the appropriate limit.
This response acts as a Refusal Notice for the whole of your request.
Under the Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held this is not possible for this request.