Failure to resolve known management issues hampered Cafcass response to rise in cases: NAO

Cafcass could have responded “more quickly and cost effectively” to the surge in care cases had it fully resolved known management challenges, the National Audit Office has said.

The NAO did acknowledge in its report, Cafcass’s response to increased demand for its services, that management at the court advisory body could not have predicted the sustained increase in care cases from November 2008.

The NAO report highlighted the extent of the challenge facing Cafcass, which saw an extra 200 cases a month from that time. It said this additional caseload slowed the allocation of dedicated family court advisers to children’s cases and increased delays in providing advice to the courts.

The number of children involved in care proceedings and other public law proceedings without a family court adviser quadrupled from 250 to 1,250.

“Cafcass was not well placed to respond efficiently and effectively because it had only partly resolved known organisational challenges around management information, IT systems and staff engagement by the time demand started to increase,” the NAO said.

The spending watchdog noted, however, that the agency increased its capacity and managed to reduce – between August 2009 and June 2010 – the proportion of children without a family court adviser from 10% to 2%.

The NAO said the cost increases – the Department for Children, Schools and Families (now the Department for Education) allowed Cafcass to bring forward £4.6m from its 2009/10 and 2010/11 budgets and gave it an extra £4.8m – “do not represent a failure of value for money”.

It added that Cafcass still faces “enormous challenges”, but acknowledged that the organisation is in the process of implementing a £10m transformation programme to help it deal with fluctuations in demand in future.

These changes will require greater organisational cohesiveness and improvements in staff morale if they are to be successful, it said.

NAO head Amyas Morse said: “Cafcass’ ability to respond to the surge in demand for its services was limited by the known problems within the organisation which, had management made more and faster progress in dealing with them, could have reduced the negative effect of the rise in demand.

“Cafcass’ transformation programme brings together plans for major organisational improvements and offers the opportunity to improve its capacity and responsiveness to future fluctuations in demand. However, the programme needs further work if Cafcass is to rise to the enormous challenge it still faces and improve how it serves vulnerable children and families.”

In its response to the NAO report, Cafcass highlighted the findings that it could not have predicted that the rise in cases would be sustained.

Chief executive Anthony Douglas said: “The NAO has recognised the steps that we have taken to improve our ability to provide a service to so many more children than ever before.”

He pointed to the fact that in June 2010, 11,243 cases were allocated to a children’s guardian – some 2,496 more than in July 2009. “This is a terrific achievement given the pressure that we, and all organisations in the family justice system, are under,” Douglas said.

Cafcass’s chief executive said the implementation of interim guidance from the President of the Family Division and the organisation’s own new operating priorities and ways of working had been critical to providing a service to more children.