Further to this post, I today received a copy of a letter from the local CAFCASS office to the court, regarding a report that was ordered on the 7th May. They state that they are not in a position to allocate the report to a CAFCASS officer at the present time, and that the case is currently at number 46 of the list of unallocated cases. They hope to allocate it within 12 weeks, and it will then take a further 12 weeks for the report to be completed. I make that a total of about 28 weeks from the date the report was ordered, or some seven months, all of which confirms Ofsted's findings of the "serious failings" of CAFCASS. So much for the 'delay is likely to prejudice the welfare of the child' principle in section 1 of the Children Act.Interestingly, the letter goes on to state that CAFCASS has "now started taking measures in order to alleviate the backlog", including "outsourcing some reports to an outside organisation". Really? Who exactly are this organisation, and what are their qualifications to deal with such matters? Are they charging for this service? If so, how much? If they are charging, then would it not be better to use that money to recruit more CAFCASS officers, to resolve the problem on a more permanent basis?
Update: Many thanks to Fiona of Divorce Survivor for pointing out that Cafcass South East entered into a partnership with children’s charity Coram at the beginning of April. For details, see this press release.
In our local courts, Leicester CAFCASS are getting their reports allocated and done within their stated 12 weeks. Coventry on the other hand are quoting 20 weeks then completing reports about four weeks late. Surely this can't just be a resource issue?
ReplyDeleteThat is interesting and, of course, appalling that the level of service you receive depends upon location. The question, of course, is: why? Is it inefficiency, or a resource issue in certain areas? If the latter, why the variation?
ReplyDeleteI've already expressed my view that this is not a resources issue so I won't labour the point.
ReplyDeleteOne has to ask, however, given that the report when received is likely to suffer from all the failings Ofsted identify, is it really worth the wait? Isn't there a better way of resolving these issues?
Is there an interim contact order in place during the wait? If not, isn't the child's relationship with the parent going to be damaged? Will the case not be much more seriously, even intractably, conflicted?
Is there any sense in which this process is in the child's best interest?
As for outsourcing, has anyone asked CAFCASS?
In the case I am dealing with, there is interim contact but, as usual, it is not as generous as the contact my client is seeking.
ReplyDeleteCAFCASS announced about a month ago they have entered into a contract in the SE with children’s charity Coram, who apparently have a good reputation in particular with regard to working with families entrenched in high conflict.
ReplyDeleteMany thanks. I missed that - obviously not as close to the South East as you! I'm adding an update to the post.
ReplyDelete