This report provides a number of statistics associated with Guardianship Act (1968) cases before the Family Court. It provides a basis for a discussion of the statistics required to feed into the work of the Law Commission Report on Dispute Resolution in the Family Court. Three sets of cases extracted from the Family Court Database were chosen for the purpose of this report: All cases between the period of 1 July to 30 September 2000 were chosen for the first set; the second set covered all cases for the period of 1 February to 30 April 2001; and all cases during the period of 1 July to 30 September 2001 made up the third set. These different time frames were chosen to allow for adequate time to follow up extreme cases, and to provide relatively up-to-date information. Statistical information is provided on costs associated with the cases, the different types and length of cases, cases associated with specialist reports, and other hearings associated with cases. The section on "Cases, Applications and Counsel for Child", notes that approximately 25% of cases have an associated application made under the Domestic Violence Act (1995). Overall, it was noted that there are approximately 11,000 cases brought to the Family Court under the Guardianship Act each year, and 75% of these include an application for custody. It is requested that caution be taken when interpreting the statistics presented in the report, and that a check needs to be made with Research and Evaluation in the Department for Courts before quoting the information contained in the report.

nz