Dear Mr McHugh

SUBJECT: Freedom of Information Request

Thank you for your request for information in which you seek:-

1) the amount of shared Residence Orders that were given by the courts, for the year 2009,

including the figures for the applicant for said orders based on mother, father or other.

2) the amount of Residence Orders that were given by the courts, for the year 2009, including

the figures for the applicant for said orders based on mother, father, other.

Also the defined winner of a Residence Order based on mother, father or other.

Your request was received on 1^st February and has been handled under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOI).

Unfortunately as the information you seek at 1) is not held electronically, information is not collected and statistics cannot be produced in terms of the relationship of the applicant and whether or not a Residence Order is shared.

In respect of 2) above I attach Children's Order Quarterly Bulletins which provide provisional information for 2009 in relation to January to March, April to June and July to September. Tables 3, 4 and 6 provide provisional figures for the total `Own Motion Orders', total `Interim Orders' and `Orders Made' respectively, which you might find useful. However, similarly the information in respect of the applicant and defined winner in terms of relationship is not collected and again neither can statistics be produced.

The information in relation to the last quarter will be published on our website at www.courtsni.gov.uk on 26^th February.

Early release of the provisional statistics in respect of the period October to December is exempt from disclosure pursuant to section 44 of FOI (Prohibition on disclosure). By virtue of the Official Statistics Order 2008 there is no pre-release access other than to designated officials within the Court Service. Figures for the public are only available on the day of publication from 9.30 am.

On publication the information in relation to the last quarter in respect of 2) above will be located under the `Targets and Performance' section in the `Publications' area of our website.

The information you seek in respect of whether or not a Residence Order is shared and the relationship of the applicant and defined winner may be contained in manual files. However Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act does not require the Court Service to comply with a request if the cost of providing the information would exceed the `appropriate limit' of £600. This represents the estimated cost of one person spending 3.5 working days in determining whether the Court Service holds the information, locating, retrieving and extracting the information. The cost of conducting a trawl of the Residence Orders which issued in 2009 to locate and record the information you seek in terms of whether the Order is shared, the relationship of the applicant and defined winner would be disproportionate and for that reason, regrettably, we will not be processing that aspect of your request further.

If you are dissatisfied with this response you may ask the Court Service to conduct an internal review in relation to your request. A request for an internal review should be addressed to: Patricia Quinn, Information Access Team, Information Centre, Laganside House, 23 -25 Oxford Street, Belfast, BT1 3LA.  If following the internal review you remain dissatisfied with the Court Service's treatment of your request then you are entitled to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner.  The Information Commissioner's address is Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

If you have any queries about your request please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please remember to quote the reference number above in any future communications.

I am sorry that on this occasion I have not been able to be of more assistance.

Yours sincerely

Glynis Crawford

Communications Group

The Northern Ireland Court Service is a Department of the Lord Chancellor

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