While the Treasury celebrated its record January surplus, a different set of government numbers tells a darker story about what's happening to Britain's most vulnerable children.

In 2022, family courts used their emergency powers to obtain information on missing children exactly once. By 2023, they'd done it 930 times. That's not a typo. It's a 92,900% increase in a single year.

These aren't routine custody disputes or paperwork delays. When courts invoke their "authority to obtain information on missing child" powers, it means a child has vanished and standard channels have failed. Social services can't find them. Police inquiries have hit dead ends. The courts step in as a last resort.

The timeline tells the story of a system under unprecedented strain. In 2022, this nuclear option was so rare it happened once in twelve months across all of England and Wales. Court clerks probably had to dust off the relevant statute books.

Then 2023 arrived. Suddenly, every few days brought another case where authorities had lost track of a child completely. By year's end, courts were issuing these emergency information orders more than twice a week.

What changed? The cost-of-living crisis hit families hardest in 2023. Energy bills peaked. Rent arrears mounted. Families moved frequently, often without forwarding addresses. Children slipped through the cracks of overstretched social services.

But there's another factor: the aftermath of COVID school closures. Children who'd been invisible to authorities during lockdowns didn't magically reappear when restrictions lifted. Some had been moved by desperate families. Others had simply fallen off every official radar.

The 930 cases in 2023 represent 930 individual children whose whereabouts became so uncertain that judges had to issue court orders demanding information from anyone who might know where they were. Each order carries the full weight of contempt of court proceedings for anyone who refuses to comply.

These aren't children who've been temporarily mislaid in bureaucratic shuffles. When courts use these powers, they're looking for children who may be at serious risk of harm, exploitation, or worse.

The government's budget surplus might be hitting record highs, but the human cost of recent years is still being counted. And some of that cost is measured in children who've simply disappeared from official view entirely.

Every one of those 930 orders represents a child whose safety became so uncertain that a judge decided the courts' most intrusive information-gathering powers were justified. That's 930 families, 930 investigations, 930 cases where the normal systems failed so completely that emergency measures became necessary.

While ministers celebrate balanced books, the family courts are quietly documenting a different kind of accounting: the children Britain has lost track of entirely.