Under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, I would like to find out from the Local Authority’s social services department how many legal court orders and informal contract agreements they have imposed that restrict visitation rights on families of a protected party. Please answer the following questions:

1. 'How many applications to the Court of Protection have you made per year, in the past five years (1st April 2020 to 31st March 2025), asking the court to impose contact restrictions on family members of a protected party? If possible, could this be broken down by category of mental impairment:
a) a protected party with learning disabilities and autism who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
b) a protected party living with dementia who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
c) a protected party living with a mental impairment other than a) or b) who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
To clarify, we are interested in the number of applications made, not the number of people per application.
If you are unable to provide details of applications asking the court to impose contact restrictions for the category of family members, please provide details for all applications asking the court to impose contact restrictions between a protected party and a person(s)'
2. How many 'working together agreements' (or your equivalent contract which outlines visitation rights for families who have relatives in care, sometimes called 'contract of expectations' or 'family contracts') the local authority made per year, in the past 5 years, (1st April 2020 to 31 March 2025) specifying contact agreements with family members of a protected party? If possible, could this be broken down by category of mental impairment:
a) a protected party adult with learning disabilities and autism who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
b) a protected party adult living with dementia who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
c) a protected party adult living with a mental impairment other than a) or b) who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
d) a child with learning disabilities and autism who may lack the capacity to make decisions about contact with family
Unfortunately, we are unable to report on this as we do not have the information in a searchable format; to find the information we would have to manually review 2000 individual client files.
This information is not held in the same place in each file and would need to be located in each clients' record; we would then need to first locate if it was in a case note or document and then read the material in each. From carrying this out on a sample of cases, it has taken an average of 20 minutes per case file.
The same applies for question 2 and we would need to manually try and locate the information.
Due to how the information is stored we would not be able to narrow the search to individual years or broken down by category.
The total time taken would be 2000 x 20 minutes = 666.66 hours. This is above the appropriate limit of 18 hours to complete the request (Section 12)