Cafcass and President of Family Division sign agreement on reducing backlogs

The President of the Family Division and the chief executive of Cafcass have published a joint agreement on extending temporary case allocation procedures as part of the drive to reduce backlogs.

The agreement – which replaces the interim guidance that expired on 30 September 2010 – has a four-fold purpose:

• “To build on the valuable inter-agency working that the interim guidance had produced
• To continue the reduction of backlogs in the allocation of public law guardians and prevent their recurrence where they have been eliminated
• To assist guardians to make the best use of their time, and
• To minimise the use of Cafcass nominated ‘duty advisers’ except where the designated family judge (DFJ) has agreed and published circumstances in which they may be used, and then to regulate such use.”

Local arrangements agreed by DFJs with Cafcass under the interim guidance and which have resulted in eliminating backlogs in the appointment of guardians in public law cases can continue to apply with the concurrence of the DFJ and the Cafcass Head of Service “in so far as those arrangements are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Public Law Outline”.

The agreement will last until 1 October 2011 and will be monitored by the Ministry of Justice, the Courts Service and the Department for Education. Further discussions between the government, Cafcass and the judiciary will start three months ahead of the agreement’s expiry.

In a joint message Sir Nicholas Wall and Anthony Douglas said they were determined to make the family justice system work for the benefit of the disadvantaged children who are caught up in it.

They wrote: “You will see that the thrust of the Agreement is that all involved in the system should work co-operatively to operate the Public Law Outline locally within an environment of increasing and complex workloads to make the most of our available resources.

“In deciding what directions should be made in relation to the work of the guardian, the court will usually hear from all parties and especially the representative of the child and will above all taken into account that nothing in the Agreement fetters the responsibility of the children’s guardian independently to represent the interests of the child in accordance with the statute and court rules.”

The joint message also set out an expectation that judges and magistrates would understand and respect Cafcass’ changing operational processes.

“In turn Cafcass recognises that it is the essence of judicial case management that judges and magistrates identify particular pieces of work which they wish the guardian to undertake and that if they regard it necessary from time to time to specify the manner in which such work is undertaken, they have power to do so,” it added.

In a separate statement, Cafcass’ Douglas welcomed the new Agreement. He said: “Through brilliant local negotiations, and sheer hard work by our local staff, we now have viable and sustainable agreements with judges and courts all over the country about the priority work we need to focus on to assist children, families and courts in the best way we can, within the resources we have.

“Feedback from judges about these local agreements has, without exception, been positive. We can build on this and strengthen our joint approach still further over the next year.”