Cafcass fights back as MPs condemn it as "not fit for purpose"

An influential committee of MPs claimed today that Cafcass is “not fit for purpose” as an organisation, a charge vigorously denied by the family court advisory service.

In a report published today, the Public Accounts Committee said many Cafcass areas do not provide a timely service to the courts, and the average time to fully allocate care cases at 27 days – down from 40 days – is “still well above where it should be”.

The report’s key findings were:

• With duty allocation needing to reduce quickly and substantially, “there is a risk that the reductions could result in the scale of unallocated cases returning to the unacceptable levels seen in summer 2009”
• Cafcass did not see the crisis coming, nor did it have a contingency plan in the event of a significant increase in demand. The organisation saw 34% more care cases in 2009/10. “The specific impact of the Baby Peter tragedy was hard to predict, but the possibility of a sustained increase in cases was a scenario that Cafcass should have planned for”
• Cafcass took “far too long” to put in place an acceptable performance management framework “and is still dealing with the legacy of under-performing staff and low morale”
• Sickness absence among frontline staff is unacceptably high and significantly exceeds levels elsewhere in the public sector
• Judges are satisfied with the quality of reports to the courts, “but caseloads carried by family court advisers have been increasing, which brings new risks to the quality of service provided to the courts and families”
• Low compliance by staff with important requirements has been a persistent problem, and has undermined Cafcass’s efforts to improve performance
• The quality of assessments on care cases by local authority social workers varies. “Poor quality assessments place an additional burden on Cafcass as the courts must request a new assessment from Cafcass family court advisers if they cannot rely on the work of local authority social workers”
• It is “shocking that Cafcass has not previously collected all the information it needs to manage its workload more effectively”. Shortcomings in the organisation’s case management system make compiling trend data laborious
• Cafcass has taken too long to secure essential changes, “and much of the responsibility lies with top management”.

The PAC said Cafcass had only been able to respond to the increase in demand through the use of measures allowing it to do less work or delay work in certain cases. These included the President of the Family Division’s interim guidance allowing duty allocation of care cases.

It called on the government and Cafcass to report back in a year “when we will expect to see that they have completed firm actions and undertaken rigorous monitoring”.

Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the committee, claimed Cafcass was ill-prepared for the surge in care cases in 2009/10. “This lack of readiness was a direct result of the organisation’s continued failure to get to grips with the fundamental weaknesses in its culture, management and performance,” she said. “It is still dealing with a legacy of low morale, unacceptably high levels of sickness absence and under-performance by some staff.”

Explaining that – despite some improvements in Cafcass’ performance – the committee did not share the Department for Education’s confidence that all will be well by 2011, Hodge added: “The failure to provide an effective service cannot be blamed solely on the rise in public care cases since 2008. Top management must demonstrate and exercise strong and vigorous leadership if Cafcass is to meet the challenges it faces, not least the Ofsted judgements that eight out of ten of the areas inspected failed their inspections and the relentless rise in open cases which is putting pressure on the family justice system.”

In a robust response, Cafcass rejected the committee’s central allegation that it was not fit for purpose.

It cited a National Audit Office report in July this year which stated that Cafcass could not have been expected to recognise earlier than it did that the increase in demand would be sustained.

Chief Executive Anthony Douglas said: “Cafcass is fit for purpose because we have absorbed a massive number of new cases in the last 12 months and have improved our productivity by 17% – a performance any organisation would be proud of.

“We have improved on every measure considered by the PAC and the NAO, including falling staff sickness which stand at 12 days for our frontline staff and is comparable to other social work organisations, faster filing times of court reports, with 85.8% of reports filed on time or only one to five days late and quicker allocation of care cases.”

Douglas said Cafcass would take heed of the committee’s findings, and would continue to defend the interests of the 140,000 children who it works with each year, “each of whose cases is unique and many of whose lives we improve as a direct result of our involvement”.

Cafcass also revealed figures suggesting that only 45 cases out of a total of 12,869 in October 2010 were unallocated – its best monthly performance and a significant reduction on previous months. It similarly pointed to the fact that it had cut the number of duty allocated care cases almost in half over six months to 568.

The advisory service also pointed to comments made by Sir Mark Hedley, the most senior family law judge in London, who said in evidence to the committee that the service delivered on the ground “for most of us is certainly fit for purpose”.

The judge suggested that Cafcass had made “real strides” in the last few months and managed to reduce backlogs. “On the whole, it is recognised as being of good quality, profoundly conscientious and so on,” he added.