Applications to place children in care have risen more than 40 per cent in five years in Northamptonshire.
Cafcass (The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) has released figures showing that applications stood at 4.7 per thousand children in 2008/2009. By 2012 /2013 that had risen to 6.7 per thousand.
The agency, which is funded by the Department of Education, said the rise was probably due to the awareness of child protection issues raised by the Baby P case in Haringey.
Anthony Douglas, chief executive of Cafcass, said: “The rise in care applications is evidence that more children are being protected in England, which should reassure the general public who were concerned about under-reaction to child abuse after hearing what happened to Peter Connelly.
“It is clear that we have been quicker to respond to serious concerns about a child’s safety and welfare.
“Our priority now is to develop an even safer and sustainable child protection system, care system and family justice system in England.
“Cafcass and ADCS are working together on a range of sector-led improvement programmes which we intend will make a contribution to the continuous improvement of services to our country’s most vulnerable children.’
Cafcass said the rise in the number of applications is significant in that it shows that more children are the subject of care proceedings than in 2008/09 as a result of changes in thresholds or policy shifts, rather than as a result of population growth.
Andrew Webb, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, said: “The next step is to look at the data in detail and explore the reasons for the variations between different local authorities.
“We know, for example, that areas responded in different ways following the publicity around the tragic death of Peter Connolly but nearly all areas saw a rise in care applications.
Some local authorities are now beginning to see a decline in the rates of care applications in contrast to the national picture.
“We must dig deeper into these statistics to discover why that is the case as the figures cannot tell us the full picture of what is happening in local areas. All directors of children’s services are working hard to safeguard and protect children and young people in their local areas.”