The number of applications under the 1980 Hague Convention in cases of international parental child abduction: FOI release

Information requested

The number of cases that the Scottish Central Authority has been involved in where an application under the 1980 Hague Convention On The Civil Aspects Of International Parental Child Abduction has been made to a foreign country to bring a child back to Scotland in each month of each year from 2015-2021. You asked for these figures to be broken down by each Scottish local authority area.

Response

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have all the information you have requested. The reason why we do not have the information is explained below.

• we do not collect statistical information on which local authority the application originates from.

However, we are able to provide a month by month breakdown of the number of applications received from 2015-2021, and this information is in the table below

YEAR MONTH	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021
JAN	1	2	1	-	-	1	-
FEB	-	2	-	1	-	1	1
MAR	2	1	-	1	1	-	-
APR	1	1	1	3	5	1	2
MAY	1	1	2	1	1	-	-
JUN	3	1	5	2		1	2
JUL	-	1	1	2	1	1	-
AUG	1	2	4	2		8	1
SEP	2	2	2	2	2	1	2
OCT	2	6	1	2	1	4	-
NOV	3	-	1	-	-	-	-
DEC	-	1	1	-	1	-	1
TOTAL	16	20	19	16	12	18	9

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