Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280-294)
MR ANTHONY
HEWSON AND
MR JONATHAN
TROSS
22 MAY 2003
Q280 Chairman: It might mean, expected
to do what had been done by the organisations which preceded it?
Mr Hewson: I think that is a very
reasonable comment, Chairman, but I think that in that context
we have to think also about setting up a national organisation
from 117 previous organisations, all of which had very, very different
working practices.
Q281 Chairman: But that means that
organisational reform stands in the way of simply doing the job?
Mr Hewson: I would not necessarily
agree with that, Chairman, but I do think that we had to tackle
the business of running the organisation first as a priority.
And, in answer to the question, what I want to say is that it
is not correct to say that we have not used that work, and it
is a myth for people to suggest that, and I have been actually
quite distressed to see that that is part of the evidence that
has been given. Three examples of that. National standards; we
have published our own national standards. When we looked at the
standards that had been drawn up by the working group, we actually
took a view that those standards, in fact, did not suit the organisation
that we were putting into place. What had happened was they had
brought together the standards from the previous Probation Service
and the previous Guardian Service to see if they could bring them
together in what I can only describe as rather an unsatisfactory
way; we felt that we needed to go back to some first principles,
and that is what we did. But to say that we did not use them and
look at them is wrong. The same with IT. There was a lot of work
done in preparation for an IT case-load management system; nobody
wanted to see an IT case-load management system more that we did,
but the truth is that if we had continued down that road we would
have probably ended up in front of the Public Accounts Committee
for actually putting in place an IT system that really would not
work. So we had to draw back from that, it was handled using Prince
2 project management advocated by the Cabinet Office, and we decided,
at one of the gateways, we were not making the progress that we
wanted to make, so we stopped it. In the training arrangements
that we have now put in place, we did indeed take a lot of notice
of what was recommended; so I think it depends on which group
you are talking about.
Mr Tross: Can I just say, it is
inescapably the case that, if an organisation which starts with
high ambitions struggles, as everybody recognised CAFCASS did
in the first year, the momentum of some of this work was lost,
and that is a matter of regret for all of us.
Q282 Dr Whitehead: I was struck,
Mr Hewson, by your comment a moment ago that, if I can understand
it, if you had introduced an integrated case management system
last year you would have been up in front of the Public Accounts
Committee?
Mr Hewson: Perhaps I can ask the
Accounting Officer to comment.
Mr Tross: Can I say what we have
and we have not got in IT, if that is helpful. What was set up
for CAFCASS, and it was described by MCSI as one of the successes,
was actually a rather good networked system, which enables people
to e-mail around, to do the word-processing. We have got on it
a rather good intranet which stores a lot of professional knowledge,
which people can access easily, and there is access to the Internet.
So, in terms of all of that, that is good and effective, and we
have just renegotiated the contract and we are saving money from
that. What it did not do was set up systems which, on line, in
a networked way, captured information about cases as they came
in and were managed through the process. The aspiration initially
was for something which was called an integrated case management
system, which would capture not only the information on the management
of the cases, which obviously is crucial, but would be something
that would be integrated for all the working, so people would
work on line, all the case records will be on line, electronic
data management, and all the rest of it. What the Government also
says, apart from having gateway reviews, is that, all the experience,
and I was at one stage responsible for the IT strategy in DSS,
so I have a fair bit of experience of big computer projects, is
that if you try to introduce these integrated systems, high ambition,
high cost, you know you are going to get delays, and you do not
need me to tell MPs about the legacy of some of the Government
contracts. Apart from having formal checks, as projects go through,
to see if they are still on course, which the inherited project
failed and was stopped, the advice is also that what you should
do is take these in incremental stages. So what we are doing now
is commissioning something which will have on line, networked,
in a way that the current stand-alone systems do not have, something
which captures the information about the children, the families,
the requests where they are in the system, how they are managed
through, tracking the history through, and that we call a case
recording system, I think for some people that is case management.
We have got a draft statement of requirements, which I and senior
colleagues will be reviewing next week, and the aim is to go to
tender on that before the summer break. So what we are consciously
doing is putting something which is desperately needed, which
is proper support for management information, but doing so in
a way that is incremental, is safe, and will give people, as quickly
as we can, support for their work.
Q283 Dr Whitehead: But you still
do not have a national database for your cases?
Mr Tross: At the moment, we collect
information each month which comes from really a diverse mix of
inherited systems, which are either stand-alone PCs, some are
actually little more than spread-sheets or paper, so there is
a very cumbersome process of people in the teams collecting the
information, relaying it to us, which then gets re-input. So we
have national information but it is just very cumbersome. And
what we do not have is, and I think that is important for some
of the things that we have been discussing here, in terms of knowing
at any time what the problem is and what the speed of allocation
is, something that is real-time, networked.
Q284 Dr Whitehead: So, with respect,
you can access on the intranet nothing much?
Mr Tross: What you can access
on the intranet is a great deal of professional information, apart
from all the core things, the law, and everything else. We have
on the intranet a research section which contains information
on what research is telling us, it has on it, for example, the
authoritative evidence on domestic violence, child protection,
from Drs Sturge and Glaser, we put on it the new legal cases.
And what we do is, each month we give electronically all our staff
a monthly, two-page bulletin, which describes professional developments,
which you can click on the link and pick up the information on
the intranet. The intranet also has a message forum which enables
people to post their comments, and for others to pick up, and
whatever comes back, to perhaps the first question, looking at
the contents of the message forum, our staff are not shy in putting
their views across, from my experience.
Q285 Dr Whitehead: And I assume that
self-employed guardians have remote access to that, do they?
Mr Tross: We give the self-employed
the monthly bulletin, professional bulletin. What we have said
is that we will give them access to the intranet on payment just
of a set-up fee. We have been trialling that and, unfortunately,
there seem to be technical difficulties, depending on which software
people have in relation to it, so we are working on it; but the
commitment is to give them access to the intranet.
Q286 Dr Whitehead: So, to summarise,
they may have access in the future but they do not have now?
Mr Tross: They do not now; they
will.
Q287 Dr Whitehead: Can I turn to
your arrangements for corporate governance. You are a non-departmental
public body; are you happy that CAFCASS actually does operate
as a non-departmental public body?
Mr Hewson: The answer to your
question is yes, but I imagine what lies behind your question
is perhaps some of the difficulties we have had. I think the first
thing to say is, perhaps an obvious point, but actually we do
not get any choice in that, we are told that Parliament has decided
that we are a non-departmental public body and the Board is recruited
on that basis. I personally and the rest of the Board believe
very strongly in the principle that we can be an independent voice,
and, principally, if I may say so, for stakeholders, more than
perhaps other groups, but all our stakeholders, and I think that
is a very, very important part of our future. But one of the important
issues for all non-departmental public bodies must be to give
them time to develop their skill and competence, and certainly
we have had, and as we have said several times today, a very difficult
time from the start. Now it is true to say that in the period
between April vesting day, April 1, 2001, and the end of November
2001, we had a very, very difficult time, and there was a particular
period of about eight weeks when there were very serious tensions
between the Department and ourselves. But also I have to say that
that was dealt with extremely quickly, the Lord Chancellor, the
Minister, the Permanent Secretary, called a meeting with me, and
we discussed in great detail some of the problems we were experiencing,
and we have moved on a lot further from that point now. I feel
that we are now beginning to get the proper amount of distance
that one normally would have, but also I have to say that, in
an area as sensitive as this, where we are dealing with, as the
Chairman has reminded us, real issues to do with profoundly vulnerable
children and their families, I think it is inevitable that from
time to time the Department will want to have a closer interest
in what we are doing than at other times, and I think that is
right and proper. I operate in a number of different environments;
in the commercial world, frankly, if the Board starts to feel
that something is really going wrong, it will start to draw closer
to management, and it will get very close to it if things get
very difficult. So all I want to say is, I think things are a
lot better, I do believe we are operating as an NDPB, and that
is what we are intending to do.
Q288 Dr Whitehead: I can appreciate
what you have said, but the purpose of an NDPB, according to Cabinet
Office classification guidance, is to operate at arm's length
from the Government. What you have just said suggests that occasionally
the arm is extended and sometimes there is a close embrace?
Mr Hewson: Yes, I think that is
the reality for all NDPBs, if I may say so. I think you have to
earn your independence, if I may say so, and because of our history
we have had to work really very hard at that, but I do believe
that is happening.
Q289 Dr Whitehead: Do you think that
there is any relationship between any of the particular issues
that you have raised and the range of professional experience
as represented on your Board? Do you think, in future, perhaps,
particularly in the context of how an NDPB works, that the question
might be raised of what experience the members of your Board have
in that independent function?
Mr Hewson: I have read the evidence
about that and I understand the points that are being made. I
would like to answer it on two levels, really. The first thing
I want to say is that I think it is wrong to suggest, as has been
suggested, that Board members do not understand what we are doing
as an organisation; actually, all members of our Board, for the
last two years, have spent a great deal of their time out in regions,
with staff, trying to get a good understanding of how our business
works, if I may put it that way. I think there have been significant
diversions from time to time, but, broadly speaking, that is what
has happened. We have on our Board two members who have very specific
backgrounds in social services work, we have a family solicitor,
two members of our Board have a daughter and son respectively
who work actually in the family court system. So I think it is
not right to suggest that we do not understand what is going on.
I think there is another issue here which is crucially important.
The job of a Board is not to manage an organisation, the job of
a Board, as I suspect everybody here knows, is strategically to
manage the organisation and to monitor its performance; and I
think it is very dangerous, when Boards start to get into the
business of managing their organisations.
Q290 Mr Dawson: CAFCASS is a support
service as well as an advisory service; what do you see as CAFCASS'
role in the provision of support services?
Mr Tross: What I think the President
was saying was, there were high aspirations and in a sense, progress
has been disappointing, but equally what we are told is we must
do the core service first. Actually, the extra `S' is alive and
well, or it is alive and well in terms of development. Two things
I can point to. One of the things that we have reviewed in the
last year is the contracts with the voluntary partners in contact
and mediation, and what the Corporate Plan says is we think we
have a distinctive role to play in facilitating contact. We have
reviewed those arrangements and we have made a decision to focus
more of the money in supporting contact centres, which I think
do absolutely superb work, in one sense, doing what happens after
we have been involved, after the court has made an order, in trying
to support families, in making contact arrangements work; so we
have done that. I was speaking at the National Association for
Child Contact Centres conference on 10 May, and at that conference
I signed a national Protocol with them, which was talking not
just about the money but the relationship, and that envisages
the contact centres having liaison support from our professional
practitioners in the locality, so encouraging that active engagement
with contact. The other, which is very much a current debate,
and, in a sense, a lot of the evidence has been about public law
and the self-employed, but, as you will know, I am sure, from
your constituency letters, there are real issues about the way
the private law system works, in terms of maintaining contact,
where the child stays, which, if you like, is also high volume,
where we are dealing with what can be some very difficult and
conflicted situations. And, there, I think, there is quite rightly
pressure, encouragement, which we would share, to see if we can
test different ways of cases going through the system, so that,
hopefully, we can divert more of the cases from all the court
process, which we know introduces delay, conflict and is bad for
the child. What we are doing there is a couple of things. We have
agreed with the MCSI that they will do a thematic inspection of
the current dispute resolution schemes that are operating across
the country, which, as ever, with CAFCASS, are very varied, but
there is a good research base to do a compare and contrast, and
that is happening now. The other is that we will be discussing
with the members of the judiciary, particularly in London, and
I was actually in the Principal Registry on Monday, observing
some of the conciliation work going on. We will be discussing
whether we can set up some form of pilot which is looking at more
structured ways of diverting now, we are keen to do that. I think
what people outside would not want us to do is spend all our time
doing that and not addressing the powerful concerns about the
current service; but that is there, it is in the Corporate Plan.
The other thing I think we are doing, which probably could not
have happened before, is that we are very much involved in some
of the discussions with LCD and the judiciary on the overall management
of cases. And I think it is one of the strengths of us, as a national
organisation and NDPB, that we can feed into this broader question
as to how the whole family justice system works, in a way that
the previous organisations could not, and, as we develop our strength,
confidence, we are increasing our input towards that.
Q291 Mr Dawson: I appreciate what
you are saying about mediation, but does moving the balance of
your financial support away from mediation towards contact, while
I accept totally the worthiness of that, not undermine, to some
extent, what you are wanting to do, in terms of mediation, and
actually undermine your efforts to reduce some of the pressure
which is there on the core business of the service?
Mr Tross: I think the reason we
did that was, and I think you have had evidence from the Legal
Services Commission, there is quite a bit of money that is going
in to the mediation and information areas. There is formal provision
when people divorce, which the LSC run, which is a mediation scheme,
or support for mediation. There are also lots of other things
that go on outside, and the Government has funded, I think given
support to, a website "It's not your fault," LCD has
published a parenting plan, there is Parentline Plus, there is,
I struggle sometimes with the acronyms, I think, FAInS, the Family
Advice and Information Services. So there is a lot of other activity.
What we felt was, in one sense, the area that was neglected, or
was particularly in need of support, was the contact centre world,
which typically are run very much by local volunteers, and where
we felt both that we had a real role to play in trying to make
sure that the arrangements reached between families stuck, with
or without the courts, and we thought we had a real contribution,
and, frankly, where we thought our money would make the biggest
difference; and that was a choice, and I think it was the right
one.
Q292 Mr Dawson: What is your partnership
like with the Legal Services Commission and with other bodies
in this field?
Mr Tross: We have good contact
with them, and it is conducted particularly through our Director
of Legal Services, Charles Prest, with staff there; so we do have
general discussions, if you like, about some of the allocation
issues, because what we do and we do not do and what they do impacts
on each other, so that is continuing. And when we were addressing
the partnership strategy, I had a meeting with the chief executive
and the people there, to talk through what we were trying to do,
to make sure that we were operating in a reasonably coherent way.
Q293 Mr Dawson: Obviously, you are
fully involved in the terrible pressures that there are within
the social work workforce at the moment. This is, I think, the
whole area of the childcare workforce, a very big element of the
`Children At Risk' Green Paper; have you given any evidence to
that?
Mr Tross: I think, what is likely
to happen in the way of things is we will make our input when
the Green Paper comes out. We discuss with LCD things like the
broader social work position, and, if you wind back to some of
the debate earlier, on delays, I think there is a real dilemma
for society in all of this. In one sense, it would be great for
me, as Chief Executive, if CAFCASS solved its problems by recruiting
lots of experienced childcare professionals, but, actually, it
is the people in the social services departments, if you like,
who are the thin front line of child protection. One of the reasons,
we are told, that our guardians have to do more work is increased
variability of the quality of the local authority social services
work and people under pressure; and I think there is an issue.
I think it came up in one of your previous sessions, about whether,
if you look at the very precious resources of social work, you
can just carry on piling it into CAFCASS, or whether actually
the real issue is about getting the right respect, quality, numbers
of people into the front line in the social services departments
who are the people who are responsible for the action on the care
plans.
Q294 Chairman: Thank you very much,
Mr Hewson, Mr Tross. I am sure you are looking forward to our
report.
Mr Tross: Indeed.
Chairman: Thank you.
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