While the Conservatives call for a rethink of Parliament's £14 billion renovation, another corner of government has been quietly dealing with an explosive increase in legal orders that protect vulnerable children.

Special guardianship orders — legal arrangements that transfer parental responsibility from birth parents to relatives or carers — jumped from 12 cases in 2022 to 1,091 in 2023. That's a 9,000% increase in a single year. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Family Court Statistics -- Family_Court_Tables__Jul-Sep_2024_ -- Table_3)

The numbers expose a contradiction at the heart of Britain's child protection system. On one hand, fewer children are being removed from their families through adoption — those numbers have been falling for years. On the other, thousands more are being placed with relatives through special guardianship, often as a last resort when parents can't cope.

Special guardianship differs from adoption in crucial ways. The birth parents retain some parental rights, but day-to-day responsibility transfers to guardians — usually grandparents, aunts, or uncles. It's meant to keep children within their extended families while protecting them from immediate harm.

The surge suggests family breakdown is accelerating faster than official adoption statistics reveal. When social services can't safely leave children with parents but want to avoid the trauma of complete family separation, special guardianship becomes the compromise solution.

Each order represents a family in crisis. Behind every case is a child who couldn't stay with their parents but had relatives willing to step in. The nearly 1,100 orders granted in 2023 mean roughly three families every day reached this breaking point.

The timing is telling. The 2023 surge coincides with the worst of the cost-of-living crisis, when millions of families struggled with rising energy bills, mortgage rates, and food costs. Financial stress often triggers the domestic problems that lead children into care.

For taxpayers, special guardianship orders are cheaper than residential care — keeping a child in local authority care costs roughly £3,000 per week, while guardians receive allowances of around £200 weekly. But the human cost is harder to calculate.

These aren't just numbers on a Ministry of Justice spreadsheet. They're families reaching breaking point in record numbers, with grandparents becoming parents again and children losing the stability of their original homes. While MPs debate the renovation of their workplace, the institutions designed to protect Britain's most vulnerable children are processing crisis after crisis.