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CAFFCASS - complaint procedure
Submission from Family Links International
(FLINT):
NAPO (National Association of
Probation Officers) asks their officers to collude with the
mother as all women suffer abuse in the Patriarchal society,
to use the Family Court to help women make decisions about
their children, have anti-male statements on domestic violence,
provide anti-heterosexual training to their officers and are
plainly biased against men, fathers and heterosexuality.
• Diversity and equality of opportunity will be valued
and promoted through anti-discriminatory practice.
Our staff work in family proceedings
in the courts in England and, under Section 12(1) of the Criminal
Justice and Court Services Act 2000, our purpose is
to:
• safeguard and promote
the welfare of the child;
• give advice to any Court about any application made
to it in family
• proceedings;
• arrange for children to be represented;
• provide information, advice and support for children
and their families.
Complainants should be made
aware they may take a judicial review against CAFCASS for
their decision making process as being a public Authority
they are obliged by law to apply the Wednesbury Principles
and HRA 1998.
Further they should also be
made aware and the CAFCASS officer templates amended so that
CAFCASS officers know that anything which they believe to
be untrue or may be untrue in their reports is Perjury and
a criminal offence as they are written under an Act of parliament.
Further, it is contrary to the
Data Protection Act to have on record inaccurate and/ or misleading
data.
The standards and principles
given are wholly insufficient, given our experience of interviews
with CAFCASS officers not reflecting what is put in the report
and often misleading, untrue and hostile statements made to
bolsters a mother’s case and denigrate the father.
CAFCASS should have procedures
and guidelines as detailed and mandatory as the Statutory
bodies for child protection if they are to investigate child
protection issues.
Social work/ feminist theories
and political correctness do not have a place in matters relating
to the protection of children. CAFCASS are often guilty of
making allegations of abuse and/ or violence based on one
persons words.
Independent persons need to
be genuinely independent and impartial with substantial knowledge
of proper research if any complaint is to be taken seriously
and the findings used to inform current practice which at
present is harming families.
There is no definition of the
best interests of the child. A best possible service without
this and cannot be given when CAFCASS regularly provide biased
reports and use the excuse of ‘’the best interests
of the child’’ or the ‘’child’s
welfare’’ for their actions.
There is no definition of how
the line manager determines whether or not to register a complaint.
This use of discretion should not be permitted given that
serious complaints having a bearing on a child’s future
may be refused for no good reason. There should not be this
leeway without fixed parameters for refusal. Again these decisions
may be susceptible to judicial review.
Any exercise of discretion must
be a real exercise of discretion. If in the statute conferring
the discretion, there is to be found, expressly or by implication,
matters to which the Authorities exercising the discretion
ought to have regard, then in exercising the discretion, they
must have regard to those matters. Conversely if the nature
of the subject matter and the general interpretation of the
Act make it clear that certain matters would not be germane
to the matter in question, they must disregard those matters.
Expressions have been used in
cases where the powers of the Local Authorities came to be
considered in relation to the sort of thing that may give
rise to interference by the Court. Bad faith, dishonesty those
of course stand by themselves – unreasonableness, attention
given to extraneous circumstances, disregard of public policy
and things like that have all been referred to as being matters
which are relevant for consideration. In this case the Authorities
have been dishonest, refused to take into account relevant
evidence and committed crimes of perjury and perversion of
the course of justice.
If the complaint procedure cannot
be used to challenge a court decision as we cannot change
the evidence accepted by a court. The judgement cannot be
challenged but the decision making process MUST be open to
scrutiny.
‘’In these circumstances
we will advise a complainant to consider either making an
appeal or making a fresh application to court.’’
This feigns ignorance of the Court where Appeals are limited
to wrong in law or so plainly wrong in the use of discretion
that no other would make such a finding and fresh applications
are already tainted by past decisions. This blocks adequate
redress against CAFCASS officers.
This needs to be amended so
that if fresh evidence arises which undermines the base of
the report or serious wrong-doing is later discovered the
complainant shall have redress.
CAFCASS are obliged as much
as any other public body to ensure they do not have inaccurate
and/ or misleading data held which may influence the report
and the Court’s decision this has to be amended before
the hearing.
There may be occasions, for instance when there are serious
allegations about child protection or domestic violence, when
we consider that we have to refer to other agencies through
our child protection procedures. This, or an allegation of
misconduct, may lead to the complaint procedures being suspended
while investigation is undertaken under different procedures.
If child protection or domestic
violence issues are to be considered by other agencies, which
is only correct given that CAFCASS are not a statutory body
for child protection or trained in such matters, then CAFCASS
themselves should not report on such matters. This then raises
questions regarding the CAFCASS Domestic violence procedures.
11.7. In some instances it may
be necessary to inform the complainant that the
complaint cannot be registered until the court proceedings
are finished and then
only if it refers to matters that are acceptable in the complaint
process and not
within the Court’s jurisdiction.
This may lead to miscarriages
of justice. CAFCASS are obliged under the Data Protection
Act and Human Rights Act 1998. These complaints MUST be addressed
before the hearing.
11.15. No investigation will
take place under the complaints procedure where the issues
central to the complaint have already been recorded as resolved
by CAFCASS at the problem solving stage.
This should not be allowed to
the discretion of CAFCASS if the complainant does not agree
or if fresh evidence comes up.
11.21. The review stage focuses on the way in which CAFCASS
has responded to the complaint to make sure that it has been
correctly conducted and has taken
account of all the complaint issues. It is a paper review
of the process and not a
re-hearing of the complaint. 11.22. A Review is undertaken
by a CAFCASS Review Board. This consists of a CAFCASS Board
member assisted by a Regional Manager ..
This should be an
and review of the
whole matter - if not CAFCASS can keep their dirty linen hidden.
The Family Court Welfare Service rubber stamped investigations
by simply stating the stages of investigation had been undertaken
without a thought as to what was investigated or how.
11.25. As this is the final
stage, there is no further CAFCASS action under the
complaints procedures. The complainant can be advised to contact
the
Parliamentary Commission for Administration through their
constituency MP if
they remain dissatisfied with the outcome.
Complainants must be advised
of their rights at an early stage to take a judicial review
or free standing action under the human rights Act 1998 as
alternative remedies.
It could be much easier to return
the Guardian Ad-litems to their well-trained and independent
role in public law cases and scrap CAFCASS. CAFCASS were brought
in under the Criminal Justice Act.
Most parents are not criminals
and should not allow to have their family relationships determined
by ex-probation officers et al, besides, pursuant to Sommerfeld
v Germany ECHR neither Social workers or Probation Officers
are sufficiently trained or knowledgeable to make reports
on contact/ residence. Only the likes of child psychologists
are.
NORTHERN IRELAND INDEPENDENT
REVIEW PANEL condemns the FAMILY COURT WELFARE SERVICE
FACTS: the need for institutional
reform On 13 October 2000 an Independent Review Panel, convened
by the Southern Health and Social Services Board, pronounced
on a complaint against a Family Court Welfare report. The
case involved a separated fathers claim he was prevented from
seeing his children. This is the first case ever to go to
independent review. The Panel, ruling in the fathers favour
on almost every count, officially identified a need for structural
reform along lines still officially denied by the Lord Chancellors
Department. The facts of Case FPC4/61/98, and the laxity of
the welfare report, reflect tens of thousands of similar disputes
heard annually in Britains secret family courts.
Many go awry. The father, a
London builder now aged 39, cohabited with his partner for
seventeen years. They had two children. On 14.11.97 the mother
took the children, left for Northern Ireland and stopped all
access. The fathers first appointment with a solicitor was
on18.11.97; on 6.4.98 at the first NI hearing to see the children,
a family court welfare officer was appointed. The officers
first attempt to contact the father was by a letter sent on
13.8.98, ten days before the report was due. The father asked
for an adjournment. Instead, the officer (without meeting,
re-contacting or speaking to the father) filed a report about
him. This unseen report, dated 25.8.98, depicted him as (i)
habitually violent (ii) a virtual stranger who had hardly
seen the mother or their children for a decade. The officer
made no provision for the fathers access to his children.
The father litigated for another 16 months before first being
allowed to see his children, through a two-way mirror under
supervision, on 15.12.99.
On 2.9.98 the father lodged
a complaint against the FCWS alleging want of care and lack
of training. Charges were dismissed in-house on 7.9.98 and
again on 23.12.98. The complainants right to Independent Review
was agreed on 10.5.99. IMPLICATIONS: unravelling of secret
family policy.
Hundreds of similar complaints,
identifying the same systems failure and based on the similar
facts, have been rejected in Britain by in-house complaints
procedures. These official denials create the impending disaster
of CAFCASS scheduled to take over the FCWS caseload in 2001.
The Lord Chancellors Department and Home Office pretended
for so long that their FCWS officers were trained that no
time remains to train them. Some 2,000 CAFCASS staff will
start work in April 2001applying family law to 70,000 children
a year with no indication of how to apply it. The NI report,
providing a first glimpse into Britains secret family courts,
shows the FCWS legacy of neglect set to continue under CAFCASS.
Family policy is compromised on a core issue.
Summary of Recommendations (Northern
Ireland only) pp34-35
• The Trust should review training provision on family
court welfare work
• The Trust should review its supervision procedures
• The Trust should develop Good Practice Guidelines
. The Trust should revisit and amend their pro forma documentation
to include all of the procedures required(p16): The Panel
are concerned over this important gap . In not obtaining the
[fathers] input the Trust were, in essence, guilty of not
acting in the best interests of the children (p27)
The trust should offer an unqualified
apology to the [father]
INPOWw 4 Cardross St London W6 ODR 0208 748 1081 Information
on Probation Officers in Welfare Work (23.10.00)
Future of the new Family Courts
Advisory Service in doubt
The underlying legal issue (should
parents be allowed to see their children after divorce or
separation) is (i) central to family policy (ii) concerns
some 200,000 children a year.
BACKGROUND The fathers original
complaint (see over) made two charges: first, that the report
wrongly kept him from his children; second, that the error
arose from a gross systems failure vitiating Family Court
Welfare reports (on which the Family Courts rely) generally.
Both charges were made good. The finding undercuts the Lord
Chancellors plans for CAFCASS (the Children and Family Courts
Advisory Support Service) contained in Sections 11-17 of Jack
Straws Criminal Justice Bill. The existing FC WS, condemned
in the report, is to be replaced by an agency subject to identical
deficit; CAFCASSs structural default is officially admitted
prior to launch.
The FCWS/CAFCASS: A Fraud on
the Public The FCWS, staffed by 660 criminal probation officers,
writes reports on some 35,000 ordinary families caught up
in ordinary divorce/separation each year. This bottleneck
agency has long been the overlooked prime determinant of family
policy.
Family cases are heard in secret.
No records are kept of FCWS recommendations or resultant case
outcomes. There is no significant right of appeal from the
court decision. There is no right to cross-examine the welfare
officer if s/he does attend court; the recommendation is nearly
always followed. In June 1996 it emerged that no training
in family court welfare work was available. Untrained staff
from the FCWS, supplemented by a new intake of staff untrained
in FCWS work, will coalesce in CAFCASS to form a (pariah)
agency devoid of guidance on what sort of recommendations
its staff should make. These facts, repeatedly denied in the
teeth of the facts by institutions involved as outgoing FCWS
management and incoming CAFCASS advisors, are now independently
validated. ITS A FACT:
• Lord Irvine said: The
pooling of their wide range of experience and considerable
expertise will be of great benefit to the family courts. By
placing stronger emphasis on professional development of staff,
the integrated service will be in a better position to provide
improved safeguards for the interests of children (LCD Press
Release 199/99).
The first word of a basic training
manual on what sort of recommendations CAFCASS should make
in what sort of circumstances has neither been written nor
commissioned
Failed Exercise in Social Engineering
Complaints lodged in Britain against the FCWS were all heard
in-house. The first seriously-prosecuted case reached the
Inner London Probation Services final appeal process on 16.7.96;
the three-man Review Panel, with full knowledge of 19 other
committee members (including the President of the Family Division)
found against the complainant (i) without reading the file
(ii) having refused to obtain access to the file. Hundreds
of backup complaints from other parents were similarly despatched,
the pattern hidden by lies and misrepresentations to MPs.
Dissent, backed by 60 constituency MPs, was litigated through
complaints procedures into the Home Office and thence the
Lord Chancellors Department, precipitating the Services disbandment
announced on 21.2.98 by Geoff Hoon MP.
The policy of official denial
offered Whitehall the option of a more-of-the-same successor.
The battle centred on training. If no training was provided,
existing FCWS management was not at fault - but the future
of CAFCASS was jeopardised. But if staff were trained how
to do the job right, this would show that the job had always
been done wrong, raising questions about a generation of 1,000,000
children whose fates were settled in 500,000 prior reports
. The NI report exposes a collusive Civil Service bungle the
first magnitude.
NOTES FOR EDITORS 1: SAMPLE
EXTRACTS from the REPORT The lack of a full investigation,
at the time, into the family situation was, in the opinion
of the Panel, unfair to all parties concerned p26
It was, in the opinion of the
panel, unacceptable to lodge the report on the same day as
the Court hearing as this denied the father opportunity to
challenge the contents p26
Poorly trained/untrained/unsupervised
staff It is clearthat induction training as specified did
not take place p15. Neither case officer nor supervisor had
benefit of training in the Children (NI) Order p19
The panel are critical the supervisors
line manager [i.e. supervisors supervisor] was apparently
uninformed of the detail of the case until it reached the
complaint stage p27 Lack of Available Training P31: The Panel
discovered evidence of inadequate training given to new staff
pB7: Criticisms may be made of the [existing materials] limitations,
and gaps identified. Where so, the production of further guidelines
and standards, which are research-founded and professionally
approved, would be welcomed and embracedpB12: it may be advisable,
however, for health and Social services trusts to review their
training provision on Family Court Welfare Work, to identify
the need for supplementary training and to ensure the dissemination
of new research findings pB21: The development of good practice
guidelines in relation to family court welfare work may also
be advisable, addressing the principles and complexities involved
in this area of work. Whether this should include guidelines
about levels of contact is a matter for debate at a broader
legal, policy and professional level. What should be acknowledged
is the emphasis which should be placed on the time and skills
required to effectively complete the assessment and mediation
process involved in cases of dispute
Routine in-house Attempt at
a Cover-Up the time available to the Trust was approximately
3-4 months and not a matter of 17 days as claimed throughout
p17 the Trusts procedures were flawed p21
unexplained absence within the
Trusts Case file of Court documentation between 20 March 1998
and 28 July 1998 p 22
The Panel are extremely disappointed
that [the case supervisor] in his letter to the [complainant]
in his letter dated 7.9.98 stated that the trust had no previous
knowledge of the request for a court welfare court until they
received notice on 10.8.98 p22
The Panel are also critical
that the Trust has attempted to shift responsibility for the
short timescale onto the Craigavon court p23
The Panel noted that the original
reply to the fathers complaint did not carry a reference to
independent review as the next stage in the process, nor was
it signed by the Chief Executive of the Trust as required
p30
Not all the documentation was
made readily available to the Panel repeated requests, in
writing had to be made before the Trust would release the
Case File, in totality, at a late stage in the Panels investigation
p30
The Panel are concerned that
no offer of a meeting was made between the Trust and the father
during the ensuing 6-7 months p30
Handling of the complaint appears
to the Panel extremely superficial p31
REPORT DETAILS
Prepared by the Independent
Review Panel of Southern Health and Social Services Board,
Tower Hill, Armagh BT16 9DR (direct line 028 3741 4603) Chairman:
A J Spence; 70 pp plus Appendices. The original welfare report
on the father was prepared by the Craigavon and Banbridge
Community HSS Trust; Chief Executive:Dennis Preston Basic
legal/social framework 1. The issue is whether children should
be allowed to see their parents after divorce/separation;
in contested cases, the legal arbiters are the Family Court
Welfare Service and, as from April 2001, the Children and
Family Courts Advisory Service.
2. The FCWS was/is staffed by
criminal probation officers untrained in family court welfare
work; there is no training in what sort of recommendations
officers should make. The possibility is that (i) some or
most of the last 500,000 recommendations (made behind closed
doors) were way out of line (ii) the family courts manufactured
a needless generation of one-parent families behind closed
doors.
3. A five-year attempted cover-up by the Home Office, Lord
Chancellors Department and Family Division means that CAFCASS
(successor to the FCWS) is set to open its doors in six months
without the first line written on what officers are meant
to do in ordinary family cases.
4. The legal framework is that
the parent who leaves home becomes a non-resident parent;
if contact with children is denied, or set at unreasonably
low levels, the NRP can apply under Section 8 of the Children
Act 1989. Although the resulting order is retrospectively
labelled as in the childs best interests, the case is in fact
determined on the say-so of the Family Court Welfare Officer
(i.e. a criminal probation officer); the Services unexamined
default assumptions routinely produce recommendations marginalizing
or excluding the non-resident parent.
5. Some 110,000 applications
for contact are made each year; the Service writes full-scale
reports on 35,000 families and intervenes at some 44,000 Directions
Hearings a year. No records have been kept on a single case.
If the officer does not attend court, case law is that the
Judge should follow his recommendation; if the officer does
attend court, there is no right to cross-examine; the custom
is that the judge should follow the officers recommendation
even if the officers reasoning is destroyed. Under G v G 1984
there is no significant right of appeal from the judges (i.e.
the FCWOs) decision. Background 1996-2000 (see also Future
of CAFCASS in Doubt)
From 1996 on, improperly-dismissed
complaints in Britain climbed up through FCWS parent bodies,
into the Home Office, Home Office Probation Unit, Inspectorate
of Probation and the Lord Chancellors Department. All denied
(i) default (ii) responsibility. In February 1999, an INPOWw
dossier Lives Well Spent identified four highly-placed officials
as accountable for the debacle in Britains Family Courts.
Within 8 months, in timing with disclosures, three were gone:
the Head of the Home Office Probation Unit, the President
of the Family Division and the Lord Chancellors Head of Family
Policy. Perhaps the most heavily implicated Sir Graham Smith,
Her Majestys Chief Inspector of Probation (0207 273 3766)
remains at his desk, on the record as ignoring obvious cover-ups
by Probation Committees throughout Britain, in particular
in Inner London, Cheshire, Cumbria, Dorset, Hampshire, Middlesex,
South Glamorgan, Surrey, Somerset and Warwickshire. [INPOWw
4 Cardross St, London W6 ODR 0208 748 1081, 23.10.00]
The interim complaints procedure is a mess since there are
no guidelines or set procedures on which to complain, and
the old system of fobbing of a complainant by stating that
the appropriate place to examine any perceived inaccuracies
is in the court setting continues as below:
RE: Your complaint to Mr Hewson
concerning Mr George Cribb's 'handling' of
'your' case.
Your E message has been forwarded
to me by the executive assistant to the
Assistant Director of Operations CAFCASS (date 2nd February
2003). I note
its contents. The reason why Your E message was forwarded
to me is because
complaints in CAFCASS are to be addressed in the first instance
at the local
level. That is in accordance with the Complaints (Interim)
Procedure, a
copy of which I attach.
The complaint you make relates
directly to the way Mr Cribb has conducted
his enquiries in the preparation of Reports for the Courts.
Specifically,
you feel that the way you allege he interviewed ******* and
**** has led to
a biased judgement against you. You refer to Parental Alienation
Syndrome
in support of your position. You allege that CAFCASS discriminates
against
fathers. In general terms, each of the points you raise is
directly about
the advice that Mr Cribb has filed with the Court. The place
in which that
advice and the basis on which it is argued ought to be questioned
is in the
Court itself. That is the purpose of the Hearing.
A Family Court Adviser is allocated
responsibility for an inquiry. S/he
makes that investigation, files her/his advice, and, if required
by either
parties or by the Court itself attends the Hearing prepared
to be
cross-examined. The Report and its recommendations are not
the 'decision'
or the 'judgement'. Responsibility for that lies solely with
the Court.
The Court takes into account the arguments presented by the
'parties', the
law as it stands, and the advice given by the Child and Family
Reporter.
'Complaint' against the Court would be an 'appeal' against
its judgement.
To take that step you would need legal advice.
I find, then, in accordance
with the attached procedure, paragraph 3 that
your complaint is about 'the professional judgement' exercised
by Mr Cribb.
In my view Mr Cribb has behaved in accordance with National
Standards. The
Court has not found his advice wanting. I fully understand
the points you
make but make no comment on their validity or otherwise. It
is simple that
they cannot be considered a complaint that could be dealt
with other than at
a Court Hearing in the proceedings out of which they emerge.
Yours sincerely
Michael Ravey
Team Manager
CAFCASS
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