Examination of Witnesses (Questions 260-274)
14 DECEMBER 2004
ANTHONY DOUGLAS
AND BARONESS
PITKEATHLEY OBE
Q260 Keith Vaz: You said you are up for
everything in the Green Paper, but you did raise, very politely,
the resources issue. You need a pretty determined increase in
funding, do you not, in order to achieve what you want to achieve?
Baroness Pitkeathley: We have
negotiated some increase in funding from the DfES, I am happy
to say. Naturally, we would say it is not enough, and certainly
it is not enough for some of the things that we will have to do.
The refocusing of CAFCASS work is very much dependent on changes
in demands by the court, changes in demands by the judges, and
the President has been very helpful to us in sending out those
messages too. Certainly, in the long term, if we are to develop
this role then more resources will be needed.
Q261 Keith Vaz: What is morale like at
the coal-face? After all, the last Chairman and Chief Executive
to appear before our Committee were not there six months later,
the Board has changed. Is morale improving?
Baroness Pitkeathley: I have to
tell you, and I think it is more appropriate for me to say this
than the Chief Executive, that morale in the organisation is very
high. Lots of people are saying to me, "This is what we've
been waiting for for a long time." Within the organisation,
morale is high and getting higher. There are some bits of anxiety,
naturally, because we do face a period of major change. The other
thing I would like to say here is that we are having huge support
from outside CAFCASS too, from the judiciary, from all the people
involved in the system from the voluntary children's organisations,
so the Board and the Chief Executive and the staff are feeling
good about the prospects for CAFCASS at present.
Q262 Chairman: Just going back to findings
of fact for a moment, you stressed findings of fact hearings at
an early stage as being helpful. Are they not actually also quite
important to avoid the perception which sometimes arises that
the CAFCASS officer writing a report has accepted as fact allegations
which remain contested, and indeed are crucial to the argument?
Certainly my experience, and probably also that of some of my
colleagues, is that the argument against CAFCASS is sometimes
not only about delay but that the aggrieved parties say the CAFCASS
officer simply accepted what the other party told them?
Baroness Pitkeathley: That is
why the focus on the child is absolutely important, and I think
it is very important to point out how good many of our practitioners
are at having that child-focused approach. Most of our officers
have got proper interview rooms with play facilities, for example,
for children so that they can be engaged in that kind of way.
Q263 Chairman: At the end of the day,
people are more likely to be satisfied if the court has sought
to establish the facts than if the CAFCASS report is being relied
on for controversial factual evidence?
Anthony Douglas: I would say we
have more social workers than any other organisation in the country.
They are trained to come down on one side or another and I want
them to make clear recommendations. What I was saying is that
the combination of a strong judge, a strongly experienced judge,
a strongly experienced CAFCASS practitioner and a good justices'
clerk can get somewhere with a very difficult case, so that it
has been through a proper risk assessment, a proper screening
process, to a quicker determination than perhaps if the whole
system is muddled, a bit chaotic and indecisive, and that sometimes
is when things can go on for a long time. What we have to do in
terms of quality assurance is build in practice models which do
emphasise completion of cases quickly, in a timely way, to a very
high standard, without sacrificing risks to a child, a woman or
a father. That is a particular style of work which really you
have to do in teams, and teamwork in private law is not as strong
as in some other disciplines. It is my firm belief that if we
build that up at the local level and also make better use of other
local resources, extended schools, Sure Start programmes, which
some of our teams are doing to give some back-up, some follow-on
support, particularly for parents under stress, then we will have
higher success rates.
Q264 Mrs Cryer: Thank you, Mr Douglas,
for mentioning problems emanating from forced marriages in Bradford.
I was beginning to think I was the only person in the world who
talked about such things, so thank you very much, it is very gratifying
to me. To take further what Keith Vaz was talking about in discovering
what is best practice for CAFCASS, when we examined the workings
of CAFCASS last year we identified a significant gap in knowledge
about what works in family proceedings-related work which CAFCASS
needs to fill. Therefore, bring us up to date. What steps have
been taken by CAFCASS to develop a research-friendly culture,
as previously recommended by this Committee? Just to remind you,
one of the things we said was: "The development of a research-friendly
culture, which welcomes external analysis and can work in partnership
with the research community, will be central to the achievement
of this goal." The goal being improvements in best practice
in CAFCASS.
Mr Douglas: I think our interventions
are difficult to evaluate, especially as the outcome is over a
long period of time. We have had only one post of research officer.
In our current restructuring we are increasing that to three national
posts and we are looking to do particularly some action research
locally and regionally. Our regional managers are developing an
audit tool about the effectiveness of some of the interventions,
some of which have been used over the years through probation
teams before CAFCASS, or other predecessor organisations. We have
got a wonderful array of models but they do need to be evaluated
and tightened up within what was talked about as the roll-out,
approved model. We are looking at accrediting particular models
as being up-to-date, research-proofed and as effective as we can
tell, and also exploring the systems like the judiciary have,
ticketing systems, so that our practitioners can be accredited
for expertise in either private law or public law or adoption
work over a period of time. I think we are realising that the
extent of what people have to know these days, the Bradford example
is one of many, is that the work is highly specialist, even within
private law, you cannot have just a general training will help.
We are putting in 200 days of mediation training for our private
law converged staff next year, which will be a plus three-day
training, because many have studied informally but have not had
formal training. All this will help and really we do need to increase
the quality assurance, research, training and development functions
over the next three to five years to be at an excellent standard
in everything we do.
Baroness Pitkeathley: I think
that applies within CAFCASS but also with our links with the wider
research community, with other agencies which provide training,
and so on, and we have been very focused, Mr Douglas and I, and
indeed my individual Board members, on increasing and extending
our links with those other communities.
Q265 Mr Soley: As the Government indicated,
if you adopt a more accurate problem-solving approach you might
have to spend less time on writing court reports. Do you think
that is right and do you think that is necessary?
Mr Douglas: In about 20% of cases,
yes. I think, to deal with cases that are contested orally in
court, through submissions, would be right. Some of our reports
duplicate information that in a fine analysis is not relevant
to what happens now and in the future.
Q266 Mr Soley: Are courts asking for
reports inappropriately, or what?
Mr Douglas: It is custom and practice,
but also some situations are so complex a court would be unwise
not to have all the details set out so they can be properly appraised.
I would emphasise, I have found only, I would say, 10% of cases
I have studied that did not need to be set out in some shape or
form, but, as I say, if we diverted 20% of our case-load to mediation
much earlier on, 10% from reports, that is already beginning to
release some resources for some of the aspirations that we all
have. I do not think there is an instant quick-fix, to suddenly
dispensing with setting out the complexity of lots of cases where
children are very vulnerable.
Q267 Mr Soley: Do you think you have
a way in which you could identify the sorts of cases where you
were asked to do a court report, which you could do without, without
putting at risk the child's interests and having their view expressed
to the court?
Mr Douglas: Certainly, in all
of our cases, our practitioners talk to children; that is one
of their statutory duties, to consider the wishes and feelings
of children. Certainly some earlier paper screening triage of
cases could reduce, I think, the amount of time taken on some
cases, but again we have a statutory duty at least always to consider
what is going on for a child in a situation, we would be outside
the framework if we did not.
Q268 Mr Soley: Is it more appropriate
for you or for the court to say, "Well, we probably don't
need a court report in this case. It might be better if the time
was spent on more active involvement in some way"?
Mr Douglas: Probably it is best
to do that jointly. We are not an administrative body, in the
sense of reaching our own solutions, and the important part of
that is to have early directions jointly with judges and justices
who do make those decisions quickly, and that does happen in many
parts of the country already.
Q269 Mr Dawson: The use of Family Assistance
Orders has been neglected since the 1989 Act. I suppose you could
speculate that has been about resources, to some extent. Given
your embrace of the possibilities of Family Assistance Orders,
what additional facilities and funding will be required to make
them work?
Baroness Pitkeathley: I think
the Accounting Officer had better deal with that one.
Mr Douglas: We operate about 700
a year, so far. I think the only way of doing that is, we have
guesstimated that the implementation of—we have had a rise
in 9.5s, children represented separately, this year, as the Committee
will know, and we think that represents a significant continuing
cost, potentially. If we implement the support arrangements, that
is a significant cost as well. We think that is done best within
the framework of "Every Child Matters". These are mostly
children in need. The resources that have gone into children in
need are questioned, but that is where most are, with some of
the developmental schemes locally and, as I have said, through
extended schools, contracts for voluntary sector groups, Home
Start and the support agencies. We are relatively isolated structurally,
which I think reflects the fact that the family justice system
is not integrated into the mainstream of children's services,
and neither is the youth justice system. I think, if we are to
deal with support properly we have to be in the mainstream of
children's services and classify many of our children as children
in need, who are able to take advantage of local provision which
other children in need in the community do.
Q270 Mr Dawson: That is music to my ears,
but can you say that Family Assistance Orders actually are of
benefit to children and families?
Mr Douglas: They have been in
some cases. I think that some reinforcement used selectively is
of benefit in some cases. All these disposals have some application
to some children and some families, but neither of them are a
solution in their own right.
Baroness Pitkeathley: I think
the relative isolation in which CAFCASS operated in its early
years did not help this, so that is why we have been very much
at pains to develop the links with the rest of the voluntary sector,
with local authorities, with social services, and so on, and we
will continue to do that, of course.
Q271 Mr Dawson: The Committee has received
evidence from the Solicitor's Family Law Association and the Family
Law Bar Association to the effect that it is not satisfactory
for children to be brought to the courts for conciliation meetings.
Does CAFCASS agree with that view?
Baroness Pitkeathley: I think
they need to be where it is most appropriate for the child and
that is why many of our offices have better facilities where such
meetings can take place.
Mr Douglas: It is important to
ask each child, where they are in a position to be asked, and
some very much want to come and put their point of view. I spoke
to an eight year old last week who was very strong, and I think
represented most children in that age group, "I just want
my parents to stop arguing." It reminds me, when I was a
social worker, of children who said "I just want whoever
is abusing me to stop. I don't want to leave home, I don't even
want them thrown out, I just want it to stop." What children
are going to say is an important statement and their voice needs
to be heard, in some shape or form, or introduced. How we achieve
for them what they nearly all want is the $64 million question.
Q272 Mr Dawson: There are lots of alternative
ways of hearing children's voices and that is a different venue
rather than bringing them directly to court?
Mr Douglas: Yes, and we have some
models, like the Principal Registry, where children do attend;
others where the facilities are just grossly unsuitable and it
would not be right for them to be there, there is nowhere decent.
At other times we can talk to them and represent their views,
and solicitors can, or we can introduce what they are saying on
video. It does not matter really as long as we do introduce their
voice into the proceedings.
Q273 Mr Dawson: We have seen and talked
to the President of the Family Division about the new Private
Law Framework and I have got a couple of questions about whether
you have got the resources to meet the needs of a practice direction.
Also, given that she is asking you to do more work face to face
with children and a number of new tasks, doing a lot more conciliation
work, for instance, will not that detract from the role of CAFCASS
in ensuring that there is separate representation or tandem representation
for children in private law? Will not that undermine the move
to implement Section (122 ?) in September next year when it comes
in?
Baroness Pitkeathley: Not necessarily,
I would have thought. It depends on how we deploy our resources.
I think the President has been very supportive in understanding
that it requires a change in the behaviour of the judiciary as
well as a change in the response of CAFCASS for this to work satisfactorily.
Some of the things that we are already putting in place do seem
to me to address those issues, leaving aside the problem that
our shortage of resources is always going to be there.
Q274 Mr Dawson: Clearly you are making
enormous strides to address the issues that this Committee and
others identified in a previous incarnation, but really you are
being asked to take on huge extra areas of work and develop skills
in particular areas of work?
Baroness Pitkeathley: It was always
envisaged that CAFCASS would take this on. The second S in CAFCASS
is exactly what this is about, so I do not know that we are having
a change of direction, merely fulfilling what we were set up to
do in the first place perhaps.
Mr Douglas: We have had a significant
increase in resources. It is never enough. Obviously, if many
children are separately represented and if these cases take enormous
amounts of time and consume additional resources then three into
two does not go. That is why I think we can only do it over a
period of years through collaborative working that is very different,
so that the service in two to three years' time looks different,
and that will be our focus. We are much more settled now than
a year or two ago. You mentioned training. There was hardly any
training for the first two years of CAFCASS. I would approach
that with some optimism because we are in the same position as
any front-line agency, trying to manage more and more functions
on fewer and fewer relative resources. We have got to do more
about support, because it is already taking a long time when cases
come back repeatedly with repeated applications and cases where
they are intractable and consume huge amounts of time. I would
just say that the report writing is a phase in the work. There
has often been lots of direct work, lots of attempts to mediate
within that, it is not just someone, the practitioners, sitting
back and writing a report, that is the end of a process, but we
are very grateful that you have raised it because it is of continuing
concern.
Chairman: Thank you very much for your
evidence this morning. You can be sure that we will continue to
take an interest in CAFCASS, so long as we have some power to
do so, because, of course, the report that we finished about CAFCASS
was one of the first that this Committee produced, it was one
of the most hard-hitting we have ever had occasion to produce
and perhaps the most dramatic in its consequences. Indeed, your
presence here, both of you, is a direct result of that report.
Therefore, we do want to express our wish that your attempts to
get the organisation meeting its targets and improving the service
it provides will prove very successful, because it is very important
to the lives of very many children. Thank you.
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