Thanks to Brian Hitchcock for this overview of CAFCASS's failure to improve on the Court Wefare Service :
Cafcass: A Castle of Iniquity?
'You are pushing at an open door lads' proclaimed Mr Hewson on 4th December 2001 to two Family Law Campaigners. But it seems that his beloved staff were bricking up the doorway even as he spoke. He is the Chairman of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service and he constantly states that the 'Buck stops with him'. Either he sold his stakeholders a pup or he took his eye of the ball at the crucial moment and did not notice that his staff were busily unpicking all the reforms that had been proposed during the 4 year consultation process that led to the creation of Cafcass ( which he had seemingly agreed to ).
Key Issues from the Cafcass Consultation Process
Cafcass and Mr Hewson had agreed with the Key Stakeholdres of Cafcass to publish the new Complaints Policy and National Standards in draft form by December 2002 for final consultation. Instead Cafcass reneged on its promise for further consultation and published both documents in their final form in April 2003. Cafcass appears to have breached the Code of Practice on Written Consultation issued by the Cabinent Office......See p.16 of the Draft National Standards ( Cafcass ). Point E of the above Code states: 'Sufficient time should be allowed for considered responses from all groups with an interest. Twelve weeks should be the standard minimum period for a consultation'.
Key Stakeholders of Cafcass...( STAKEHOLDER: A term meaning anyone who has an interest in an area of Govt.) were incensed that Cafcass railroaded through the new Complaints Policy and Standards. They had wanted full disclosure before the final documents were presented to the Board of Cafcass for rubber stamping.
Accountability of Cafcass Officers
The aim of Cafcass is to provide a high standard of reporting in all Family Proceedings, and to give a voice to children at a critical time of their lives....Complaints Draft Policy p.6. But are the ascertainable wishes of children really sought by Cafcass Officers when they are compiling their court welfare reports?
There is no detailed research ongoing into the operation of Cafcass. And as the Family Courts are held in secret then little information seeps out about the daily carnage in the Family Courts. The Famiy Court Welfare Services that Cafcass replaced would not allow any complaint against the content of welfare reports under their complaints policies and stated that the only place to bring up issues of content was in court.
Lord Justice Thorpe that visionary supreme of the sisterhood put paid to that avenue of justice by banning the automatic right to cross-examine a court welfare officer in a Judgment laid down in 1998. The old feminist reactionary was overruled, thankfully, by a statutory instrument on the 1st April 2001 which allowed the right of cross-examination to be restored....
Court Welfare Officers could write what they wanted in their reports.....And many of them subscribed to the National Association of Probation Officers doctrine of exsclusion of men from their children's lives after family break-up....see p.8 of the NAPO anti-sexism policy published in 1996 for proof of this statement. The whole policy promotes an anti-men agenda. Court Welfare Officers were trained by Napo on a conversion 3 day induction course....the only 'training' many received!
A sick pantomime was enacted daily in the Family Courts as welfare officers processed children out of their father's lives....
Very few men obtained Residence orders and the ones that did had to fight like hell. Court welfare officers because they were immune from complaint could butcher the new 'strangers' to the village to their hearts content.
Hopes Dashed
The draft complaints consultation paper promised so much....1.6.3 on page 6 states 'It is important that complaints about the factual basis and the judgments in the advice being given are raised before proceedings are completed and the Court reaches its decision'......For the first time it looked like a party to a Family law case could raise a complaint in future about the content of a Cafcass report under the new proposed Complaints Policy..... Sadly, the new Complaints Policy seems to have dashed that hope. P.8 of the new policy has a flow diagram which appears contradictory...Boxes 2 and 3 appear at odds to each other. Box 2 'Have you a concern about the factual accuracy of the report?.......Contact the CAFCASS employee etc.........seems to open up the door to compaints about the factual accuracy of the CONTENT of Cafcass Reports......... but this is not what Cafcass will allow as...... Box 3 'Have you a concern about the content etc........ Consider requesting a Court hearing ( puts us right back to square one ).
Cafcass by the wording of Boxes 2 and 3 seems to want to crush all complaints (like the Welfare Services before them) about the content of Cafcass Reports. Cafcass and the Family Courts have no formal quality control measures.... Cafcass Reports can be shredded in court and Cafcass Officers can escape rebuke or censure about the content of their reports. Cafcass is being put under immense pressure by Subject Data Requests under the Data Protection Act 1998. Actual conpiracies against fathers by Cafcass staff are coming to light when Cafcass has to supply all the information on their files including damning internal memos.
Cafcass professes to be Human Rights Act compliant but in reality many of its staff were obtained wholesale from the old Family Court Welfare Services and they brought with them the poison of the Sisterhood and the anti-men training of the DRAGONS at Napo.........Men were and are regarded as non-human by Cafcass staff.......The very words of fathers are still mis-reported in Cafcass Reports.
The Methodology of Cafcass Reports
Cafcass Officers routinely rely on:
1. Hearsay Evidence
2. The most basic of information gathering techniques
3. The protection of the entire Family Law System against all form of censure
Cafcass Reports do not come up to the standard of the first attempt of a first year university student. 'Medical' comments are routinely included without Cafcass Officers having the Qualification to make them. Cafcass Officers are often partisan and usually favour women....Shared-Residence considerations rarely surface. Most Cafcass Officers have not been trained how to construct their reports in a fair and professional manner.
Cafcass refused to look at codes of practice from outside their remit. The National Standards Care Commission a non-departmental public body like Cafcass obliges its staff to be fully accountable for the content of their reports and the medical professions generally demand a high level of accountability for reports.
Door closed?
Cafcass Officers still do not operate under any guidelines for Residence, Shared-Residence and Contact despite an exstensive consultation process lasting a number of years. This is hardly suprising because the orginal remit did not include any consideration of the above issues. Family Law is still a mess and a dirty backwater.
Brian Hitchcock
Comment : When will Parliament act ?