The Cafcass blank 2017: the CEO
Sixteen years after Cafcass first opened its doors in 2001, the reform movement was into a new season of Parliamentary manoeuvres to provide Ministers with ammunition to penetrate the standard “all’s well with Cafcass” misinformation issued by officials. The problem was, the true position is so hard to believe.
Surely Cafcass could not have been paid some £2bn over 16 years to provide guidance it did not have - and had no intention of producing? Did Cafcass really fob off a generation of parents, politicians, officials, lawyers, committees, inspections and reviews by saying “of course we have guidance - our guidance is, that we have no guidance!” Surely, Cafcass would not write over half a million reports on the child’s best interests in terms of post-separation parenting - without an idea of what that might be?
The central void could be demonstrated - but only by close perusal of every document issued by Cafcass. Its every leaflet and brochure, its entire website and its comprehensive Operating Framework were all identical vacuums in terms of the issue in dispute (the best-interests duration of contact). But proving this negative was a real fag; far simpler for a Member of Parliament to write direct to Cafcass itself and ask their CEO to confirm that the organisation ran on empty.
Here is that correspondence: and yes, from the top of the tree, Cafcass has no guidance - either for parents or staff.
Doublethink
This 2017 letter from Cafcass’ CEO is extraordinary for another reason. Muddle beyond the usual is evident. Cafcass’ CEO affirms:
“We do not focus on parenting time as our remit is to work out the best arrangements for the child on an individual basis”
But - the allocation of parenting time is the arrangement for the individual child.
In other words, Cafcass had thrown out the baby with the bathwater. Its interpretation of its job did not include … its job. When working out the best (parenting-time) arrangements for the individual child, the (parenting-time) arrangements for the individual child are not relevant.
That gives us Cafcass in a nutshell: first, as a proponent of a one-parent system of justice (it has no guidance to prevent the elimination of all significant contact for no significant reason); and second, as an organisation that is not particularly interested in delivering the best arrangements for the child (because, it does not focus on that).
To read the CEO correspondence, click here.