Jane Webb
mailto:request-12580-
[email address]
Cafcass
6th Floor Sanctuary Buildings
Great Smith Street
Your ref:CAF228
London
Our ref: JJ/CAF228
SW1P 3BT
Date: 26th June 2009
Tel: 0844 353 3317
Fax 0844 353 3398
Dear Ms Webb
Re: Freedom of Information Request
Thank you for your recent request, which was received on 29th May 2009 requesting the
following:
1
I would like to know more about the partnership coram have with Cafcass also
statistics of how many children were adopted without parents consent in past year
and for each area
2
Also how many fathers who had or were suspected of domestic violence were
given access or custody of their children.
3
I would also like to know national statistics for complaints.
Please see below:
1 I would like to know more about the partnership coram have with cafcass also
statistics of how many children were adopted without parents consent in past year and
for each area.
The Cafcass Case Management System does not record whether an adoption order was
made with or without the parents consent. You may be able to obtain this information from
Her Majesty’s Courts Service
http://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk.
2 Also how many fathers who had or were suspected of domestic violence were given
access or custody of their children.
Cafcass does not have this information available on its Case Management System. This
information would be found only in the individual case file. Cafcass case recording requires a
copy of all court reports to be retained on the manual case file, but there is no requirement for
the reports (and therefore fathers who had or were suspected of domestic violence and if
they were given access or custody of their children) to be filed electronically. Furthermore,
Cafcass case files are not usually held in Cafcass offices after case closure but are sent off
Baroness Valerie Howarth Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
for storage. To gather the information requested would mean retrieving manual files from
storage, searching through more than approx 38,000 cases (which is the approximate
number for 2008/09 alone) in which court reports were requested in Cafcass. The time it
would take to do this would exceed the £450 upper limit assigned to Cafcass. Our firmly held
view therefore is that the information is not held in a retrievable form and to comply with this
request would cost more than the upper limit. Cafcass are therefore unable to provide you
with the information due to the reasons above.
3 I would also like to know national statistics for complaints.
This information can be found in the Cafcass Annual Report and Accounts on the Cafcass
website.
www.cafcass.gov.uk. The 2008-09 annual report and accounts will be published at a
future date and is therefore exempt under section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act.
If you are unhappy with the decisions made in relation to your request, you may ask for an
internal review to be undertaken. If you are dissatisfied with the way the internal review is
handled or with the final decision made at that review about the information released, you are
free to contact the Information Commissioner’s office (www.informationcommissioner.gov.uk)
Post
Fax
Information Commissioner's Office
01625 524 510
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Yours sincerely,
Miss Jasvinder Jassal
Corporate Governance Officer
[email address]
Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act provides that:
1. Information is exempt information if -
o
(a) the information is held by the public authority with a view to its publication, by the authority or
any other person, at some future date (whether determined or not),
o
(b) the information was already held with a view to such publication at the time when the
request for information was made, and
o
(c) it is reasonable in all the circumstances that the information should be withheld from
disclosure until the date referred to in paragraph (a).
2. The duty to confirm or deny does not arise if, or to the extent that, compliance with section 1 (1)(a)
would involve the disclosure of any information (whether or not already recorded) which falls within
subsection (1).
Baroness Valerie Howarth Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF)
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