Summary
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support
Service (CAFCASS) was established on 1 April 2001. It brought
together the work of securing children's welfare through representation
and reporting previously done by the Family Court Welfare Service,
the Guardian ad Litem and Reporting Officer panels and the Children's
Division of the Official Solicitor. At the time our inquiry started,
CAFCASS fell within the responsibility of the Lord Chancellor;
that responsibility has now been transferred to the Minister for
Children in the Department for Education and Skills.
The skill and devotion of staff throughout the organisation
and their commitment to the children they serve is not to be gainsaid,
and criticisms of the way CAFCASS's difficulties have been handled
should not detract from that. Nevertheless, widespread concern
about CAFCASS's performance has been apparent ever since it was
set up. A dispute with the self-employed guardians who made up
the bulk of the pre-CAFCASS workforce on the public law side of
the new organisation's work led to a loss of staff which had a
serious impact on CAFCASS's ability to deliver core services.
CAFCASS found itself unable to cope with increasing demand for
its services and significant delays in the allocation of guardians
to cases persisted. Meanwhile CAFCASS failed to improve the service
offered by the Family Court Welfare Service in private law disputes.
Many vulnerable children were left without full representation
at critical times as a result.
Our inquiry found serious failings in the establishment
and management of the new Service. Too little time was allowed
for its establishment, leaving the organisation at a disadvantage
from the start. Once established, CAFCASS failed to make proper
use of the preparatory work which had been done, compounding the
difficulties. Relations with self-employed guardians were mishandled,
resulting in the alienation of an important sector of the workforce.
The focus on the dispute and an over-emphasis on the creation
of management structures led to the neglect of other important
aspects of the service, including training and professional development,
IT and the development of support services for children and families
experiencing relationship breakdown. Meanwhile, the delivery of
CAFCASS's core services failed to improve.
A CAFCASS Board lacking experience and expertise
in key areas of the organisation's work proved unable to exercise
effective oversight or provide appropriate strategic direction,
hindered by confusion over lines of accountability and the respective
roles of the Board, the senior management team and the Lord Chancellor's
Department. The dismissal of the original Chief Executive caused
further disruption to CAFCASS's work, while LCD itself managed
to create the impression that its prime interest in the new Service
was in keeping costs down.
We make a number of recommendations aimed at enabling
CAFCASS to become the "high quality service operating to
the best professional standards" envisaged when it was first
proposed. The priority for CAFCASS must be for it to get to grips
with its service delivery duties, and clear the backlog of cases
which has been allowed to build up. To assist in doing so, it
should conduct a comprehensive workforce planning exercise aimed
at ensuring that it knows what resources are needed. It should
establish a dedicated training and professional development strand
and enable the effective performance management of its front-line
practitioners. It should put in place a fully fledged case management
system which will allow the collation of reliable information
for management and research purposes and relieve some of the burden
on hard-pressed front-line managers. It should indicate the role
it envisages for itself in the provision of support services,
and develop relations with other bodies working in the field,
particularly the Legal Services Commission. Additionally, it should
develop its research capacity so that it can establish "what
works" for children experiencing family breakdown.
Changes are also required in corporate governance.
CAFCASS needs to demonstrate clearly and unambiguously that it
is putting children and young people first in all it does. It
should re-examine its management structures with a view to ensuring
that it has a management style appropriate to the work it does.
CAFCASS's Framework Document should be rewritten so that it explicitly
reflects the Service's core tasks and sets out the proper constitutional
relationship between CAFCASS as an NDPB and its parent Department.
There should be a fundamental review of membership of the Board,
with the aim of bringing onto it people of experience and stature
who can develop the strategy necessary to deliver an effective,
child-centred service. The new Board should take steps to ensure
that it is able to carry out effectively its function of providing
strategic direction and holding senior management to account.
CAFCASS performs a vitally important function in
the protection of vulnerable children at a critical time in their
lives. In the two years of its existence so far considerable doubt
has been cast on its ability to perform that function effectively.
CAFCASS needs to be helped to use, develop and build on the considerable
skills which exist among its personnel and to become the kind
of quality organisation it was originally intended to be. We hope
that by addressing the concerns raised in this Report CAFCASS
will begin to regain the confidence of those working with and
for it and show that it is an organisation genuinely and effectively
committed to the children it serves.
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