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David Batty and agencies
Friday December 5, 2003

The constitutional affairs secretary has demanded the resignation of the entire board of the beleaguered Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service (Cafcass).

The action by Lord Falconer comes months after a damning select committee report on the child welfare agency, which was established two and a half years ago to improve the interests of children in court proceedings such as custody decisions.

It emerged yesterday that Lord Falconer has told the board to stand down in a bid to give the heavily criticised £70m agency, which deals with 30,000 cases a year, a fresh start.

It is understood that a new chairperson and an interim board has been appointed, but the government has refused to confirm this.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said: "We are determined that Cafcass will act as a more effective champion for children involved in family proceedings. Steps are being taken to appoint a new chairman and board."

Child protection groups say at least three child deaths can, in part, be laid at the door of Cafcass, which ministers initially lauded as a cornerstone of the child protection system.

Hundreds of children are being put at risk every week because it is failing to allocate expert welfare officers, known as guardians, to child custody cases quickly enough, according to children's charities and lawyers.

Liz Goldthorpe, chairwoman of the Association of Lawyers for Children, said: "I'm glad to see the government has some desire to tackle the problems at the top of Cafcass.

"But it's a shame that the entire board has been asked to resign because at least two members have been fighting for improvements and their experience and expertise will be missed.

"We've been informed that a new chair has been appointed and a small interim board. But we don't know who they are, so we have no idea whether they will be any more effective."

The DfES has denied that the call for the Cafcass board to resign did not come from the children's minister, Margaret Hodge, because of ongoing questions about her own credibility.

Mrs Hodge has come under growing pressure to resign since she became the UK's first children's minister, at first for her mishandling of a paedophile scandal when she was leader of Islington council, and last month for branding one of the victims of that abuse "an extremely disturbed person".

A DfES spokeswoman said that Mrs Hodge would not assume formal responsibility for Cafcass until January. The agency was transferred from the old Lord Chancellor's Department to her portfolio this summer.

A report by the Commons constitutional affairs committee, published in the summer, found there were "serious failings" in the child welfare agency, which has been unable to cope with the demand for its services.

The inquiry also concluded that the agency's management had too little experience of the child welfare and family courts system.

The chairman of the constitutional affairs committee, Liberal Democrat MP Alan Beith, said its investigation had found an organisation in "chaos".

"It was manifestly failing to provide children's guardians, which used to be provided within 24 hours of a case arising," he told BBC Radio 4 yesterday.

"We were finding that weeks and even months were passing and hundreds of children were outstanding and not provided with guardians at any one time.

"The organisation was really in chaos despite the efforts of frontline staff to keep it going."

Cafcass was created on April 1 2001, as part of a government restructuring of how the judicial system and welfare agencies interacted.

It brought together a range of work, done by more than 130 local organisations to represent children's interests during divorce, childcare and adoption cases.

The aim was to reduce the amount of time a child had to wait for a court decision, while ensuring that the decisions - which would affect the rest of a child's life - were the right ones. But the hoped-for shorter waiting times failed to emerge.

<<< - Just published

OUTSOURCING & DIVERSITY:-
CAFCASS refuses to implement to monitor its contractors
for gender biased employment structures:

"During the 2003 CAFCASS consultation ... a huge number of institutions, charities and church bodies (nearly exclusively staffed by females) had spotted a huge outsourcing opportunity under the NEW CAFCASS, to become "approved contractors", with CAFCASS acting as the "client" as well as the distributor of Government funding." Children's right to access both men and women in caring roles is compromised when CAFCASS places contracts with organisations that have a workforce that is nearly 90% female.
(see CAFCASS and Child Contact centers).

NEW New Labour and Fathers NEW

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