Jimmy
Cafcass National Office
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
3rd Floor
21 Bloomsbury Street
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
London
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
WC1B 3HF
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Tel 0300 456 4000
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
Your ref: CAF 15-88
Our ref: Gov/CAF 15-88
29 May 2015
Dear Sir
Re: Freedom of Information Request
Thank you for your seven emails of 11 May 2015, which have been collated below. You
made the following requests for information:
1.
a. How much of the money received was then paid out in bonuses to
employee's?
b. Can you give reasons as to why the bonuses were paid out? Ie. good
performance bonus?
c. And please give details of the most recent year as well? Both - Funding and
how much on bonuses and why?
Performance related pay (bonuses) and the reasons behind these can be seen in
our
Annual Report 2013-14 (pages 37 – 38).
The 2014/15 accounts have not yet been audited; these will be published in July
2015 when they are presented to Parliament. This information is therefore
currently exempt from disclosure under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information
Act.
Section 22 Information intended for future publication
1.
Information is exempt information if— .
(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), .
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11
(b)the information was already held with a view to such publication at the
time when the request for information was made, and . (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.
a. Please confirm and give the evidence of family court advisors monitoring their
own performance initially?
b. Also, how do they do it as to comparison to see how well they are doing?
c. What is the process or similar after their initial self monitoring? They show
whether they've hit or met targets etc and why - Does then a manager check
this?
d. Who checks it?
e. And how does this go to overall and yearly performance ratings?
f. Please submit the relevant documents for annual employee performance
review etc.
Section 6 of the
Operating Framework and the
Supervision Policy provide the
framework of how performance is monitored, measured and assessed at
Cafcass.
A range of routine performance management tools are used to support this
process for all staff:
myWork provides practitioners real-time personal data on their individual,
team and service area performance, and how this compares to others
across the country;
Quarterly structured Performance and Learning Review (PLR) meetings
between the manager and the individual, where, following each
discussion, an assessment of ‘good,’ ‘met’ or ‘not met’ wil be made of the
member of staff, with learning objectives set to support their development;
At least annual management observation of practice with service users;
Regular case audits from the National Improvement Service on a service
area, team and individual level;
360 feedback from colleagues, service users and other relevant
stakeholders.
The
Supervision Policy includes the relevant forms that are used by managers to
assess knowledge and skills against the performance management framework.
g. Also, please state and evidence what and everything involved for promotion to
enhanced family court adviser.
Appointment to all permanent roles at Cafcass, including Enhanced Family Court
Advisor, is subject to a competitive selection process. The Job Description for the
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11
Enhanced Family Court Advisor is attached to this response that details the
competencies, qualifications and experience needed to be able to perform the
role effectively.
3. Also, please show how the relevant performance levels go towards financial bonus to
family court advisors.
There are no financial bonuses that are paid to Family Court Advisors.
Family Court Advisors are paid between £36,516 (commencement salary) and
£40,719 (target salary). Staff are eligible to progress to target salary upon satisfactory
completion of a 6 month period. London Weighting of £4,293 is also available for
those that work in the Greater London region.
4. Does the amount of successful referrals regarding service users constitute good
performance? And how does this contribute to good employee performance? Also,
does the detection of risks contribute to good performance? For example - If a
practitioner found that drugs were a risk, how does reccomending a drugs
rehabilitation programme contribute to good performance? Is it on completion of the
programme? Or is the identifying of the risk considered good performance?
The
Operating Framework and the
Supervision Policy detail what constitutes good
performance for a Family Court Advisor in relation to frontline practice.
5.
a. Please show how Cafcass deal with [parental alienation]?
Section 4.19 of the Operating Framework makes reference to “implacable
hostility” which may lead to “alienation” of a child from one parent, and sets out
how we assess such issues in our cases.
Implacable hostility will be assessed under Cafcass’ framework of assessing the
child’s best interests, which includes application of the welfare checklist. More
information on Cafcass’ assessments can be viewed from paragraphs 1.11
onwards of
Cafcass’ Operating Framework, with direct references to implacable
hostility as outlined above.
All recommendations are case specific and are based on the Cafcass
practitioner’s professional judgement of the child’s welfare.
b. What training is given on this?
All Cafcass training for practitioners focuses on being child centred, and taking
into account risk factors, evidence-based assessments, and diversity issues.
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11
We have a tool (
‘Impact of parental conflict tool’) for use in direct work, as well as
access to resources and new research via our in-house library service, to assist
practitioners in being able to assess the presence of implacable hostility in private
law cases.
c. And what then are the options if initial attempts from Cafcass to solve it, didn't
work?
As stated above, Cafcass wil assess the child’s best interests and make
recommendations to the court. All practitioner recommendations are case specific
and are based on their professional judgement of the child’s welfare. However, it
is the court, and not Cafcass, that makes decisions in family court proceedings.
Cafcass can only become involved and complete work, including any further work,
on a case at the request of the court.
6. That means give evidence of what measures and similar are put in place and what is
used to deal with Parental Alienation? And give evidence of the training involved
please, via training manuals, books, classes or similar?
Please see our response to question 5.
7. What's your protocol for cases that you deal with, that have previously been
dismissed? Or even when cases change practitioners for what ever reason? Do the
new or even same practitioners as before use the original case logs etc?
When we receive a private law application from the court, part of the screening
process will identify whether the parties are known to Cafcass. All applications have
an individual case file, though practitioners may refer to previous case files where
relevant to the current application.
Information on Cafcass’ policy regarding case transfers can be found in paragraph
2.13 of the
Operating Framework. The overriding principle in any transfer of cases
within Cafcass should be what is in the best interests of the child, which will inform
discussions and decision making about the transfer of cases, with a view to avoiding
delay in proceedings.
8. Please confirm that family court advisers can recommend mediation and ex-couple's
counselling and similar avenues of progress, regardless of nature of Section 7? For
example, even if it's a risk assessment, family court advisers can recommend
mediation and ex-couples counselling? And they DON'T have to recommend
Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programmes and MARAC referrals?
Cafcass practitioners are required to assess risk when the court orders a risk
assessment as part of a Section 7 report if it feels that there is some risk to any child
subject to proceedings; furthermore, under
s16A of the Children Act 1989 Cafcass
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11
practitioners are under a duty to undertake a risk assessment whenever they have
cause to suspect a child subject to proceedings is at risk of harm and to pass this
information to the court. Please see section 2.40 – 2.42 of the Cafcass
Operating
Framework for information relating to when MARAC referrals may be made; for more
information please also see our
Child Protection Policy.
Cafcass practitioners make recommendations to the court for how a child’s welfare
and best interests can be promoted and safeguarded. When considering
Commissioned Services and Contact Activities, the recommendation to the court will
be based on what the Cafcass officer assesses is in the child’s best interests in that
specific case. This will be based on their professional judgement and will be different
in every case.
Please see our
Operating Framework sections 4.39 - 4.46 for more information on the
activity directions which could be recommended by a Cafcass practitioner (Separated
Parents Information Programme, or Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programme);
Family Mediation can be considered at any time where considered appropriate.
9. I also request the relevant information from Cafcass's formation be provided on ALL
matters and along with the documented changes and dates of such, if there are any,
and up until today's date, please?
You are requesting documentary evidence of all policy changes relating to the above
issues since the formation of Cafcass in 2001. As this is a very broad request relating
to a number of items, the cost of compliance in order to look at all documented
changes of these would exceed the appropriate limit which for Cafcass is £450. All
information provided has been up to date; if there is anything specific you would like
to see a historic version of, please let us know.
In our estimation the cost (a flat rate of £25 per hour provided by the FOI Act) would
exceed the appropriate limit which is 18 hours for Cafcass, in order to complete one
or more of the following activities permitted to be accounted for, which are:
Determining whether the information is held;
Locating the information, or a document containing it;
Retrieving the information, or a document containing it; and
Extracting the information from a document containing it.
A response to this request is therefore exempt under Section 12 of the Freedom of
Information Act.
12 Exemption where cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit.
1.
Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for
information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request
would exceed the appropriate limit. .
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11
2.
Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply
with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with
that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit. .
3.
In subsections (1) and (2) “the appropriate limit” means such amount as may be
prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation to different
cases. .
4.
The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, in such circumstances
as may be prescribed, where two or more requests for information are made to
a public authority— .
(a) by one person, or . (b) by different persons who appear to the public authority to be
acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,
the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the
estimated total cost of complying with all of them.
5.
The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the purposes of
this section as to the costs to be estimated and as to the manner in which they
are to be estimated.
We hope that you feel your question has been answered effectively. 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,
Tel
Wilmslow,
0303 123 1113
Cheshire
E-mail
SK9 5AF
xxxxxxxx@xxx.xxx.xx
Yours sincerely,
Governance Team
Cafcass
xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx
Baroness Tyler of Enfield Chair
Anthony Douglas CBE Chief Executive
Cafcass, the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, is a non-departmental body of the Ministry of Justice
Cafcass National Office, 3rd Floor, 21 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3HF | DX Cafcass 310101 Bloomsbury 11