This is a matter for the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). Anthony Douglas, the chief executive, has written to the hon. Member with this information and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.
Letter from Anthony Douglas, dated 25 July 2007:
I am writing to you in response to the Parliamentary Question that you tabled recently:
152736—To ask the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service's self-regulated appeals procedures.
Cafcass current complaints procedures provide for a review process in relation to all decisions made in response to service users complaints. An important part of the complaints procedures rests with the problem solving stage in which Cafcass makes every effort to understand the service users complaint, to address it and to respond to it. Cafcass has mechanisms for learning from those complaints and ensuring that lessons learnt from them are applied to its practice.
Independent scrutiny of the application of Cafcass complaints procedures is provided by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, who, on request, will consider any complaint that Cafcass has not operated its complaints procedures in a fair and reasonable way.
In 2006 the former DfES produced new guidance and standards for complaints procedures for Non-Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) and Local Authorities to put in place for children's services. On publication of the DfES guidance, Cafcass undertook an examination of its own complaints procedures as a direct comparison against those advised by the DfES Guidance. In December 2006 this comparative report was presented to the Cafcass Board Task Group on complaints procedures, which decided in principle that Cafcass should begin work on a revised complaints procedures that builds on the strengths of its current procedures whilst meeting the standards set down by the DfES guidance, unless in any specific respect there were clear reasons related to the nature of the work of Cafcass not to do so.
In particular, the Cafcass Board made the decision that Cafcass complaints procedures should be revised to meet the requirements laid down within the DfES guidance in two respects:
1. For the services of independent observers to be employed to oversee the progress of complaints investigations, in order to guarantee the process in terms of fairness and reasonableness.
2. To include a final appeal process involving a panel of independent people.
As a consequence Cafcass is currently in the process of redrafting its complaints procedures to meet these standards of independence as well as other aspects of the DfES guidance.
A copy of this reply will be placed in the House Library.