On 7/11/18 I requested reasonable adjustments under the 2010 Equality Act to Service Manager Andrea Walters : Leeds Cafcass A4 to enable me to facilitate my complaint of disability discrimination and professional misconduct: serious complaints.

I requested reasonable adjustments to address all issues in my complaint; only partially submitted due to disability barriers that I needed a face to face meetings with somebody of my choice present to assist me process information. I requested this in a neutral venue of my choice preferably a room in my MPs office. The service manager suggested meetings to deal with the complaint be held at my solicitors office which given the sheer volume of the complaint would have been unaffordable costing excessive amounts. I made it clear I was unable due to illness plus lack of personal assistance to submit or participate in the complaints procedure by telephone and likewise by email. I reiterated many times I was unable to communicate the complaint by email. I requested the reasonable adjustment of meetings re the complaint were recorded so I could fully understand and process the information with 15 minute breaks. I also requested I submit my complaint in manageable parts when able to do so in a step by step approach.

The manager agreed reasonable adjustments were right and proper however she did not, nor did anyone in the CST allow the reasonable adjustments. The manager said she would get back to me later that day. She did not.

Pauline Foggo stated: “you will need to tell this person (me) to tell you everything by email. We will NOT be making reasonable adjustments by meeting her face to face Hema. We only do that for persons without capacity to instruct a solicitor”.

Needless to say Pauline Foggo nor the CST nor anyone in the Cafcass entity had identified whether I did or did not have capacity to instruct a solicitor; which for the record I have not

In conclusion Cafcass are breaching the 2010 Equality Act. By not providing reasonable adjustments at the outset meant I was set up for the complaint to fail akin to asking someone in a wheelchair to get up and run.

Whilst ‘waiting’ for them to provide the requested reasonable adjustments and partially submit complaints in a step by step approach and updating them of further health barriers and asking them for information on quality assurance and due diligence.

Hema Johal : CST rang to rang from a mobile phone to introduce herself saying she was ringing because she wasn’t quite sure if I was withdrawing my complaint at this stage or if I wanted her to carry on investigating it ? I told her I’m absolutely not withdrawing my complaint at all ? She referred to earlier correspondence where she said I had “asked her for MORE TIME and she was aware I had further issues to raise so at that stage she wasn’t sure if I was withdrawing the complaint. She said she’d sent a letter. She said she would carry on investigating.

I reiterated disability, illness and needing time to be able to do it.she said OK.

I explained that part of the the complaint was about disability discrimination and I need to be able to submit it “when I am able to submit the rest of it” explaining that as a reasonable adjustment I couldn’t withdraw it but would submit it ‘part by part’ on days well enough to do so.

Hema Johal said that that was the “problem” Cafcass CST only have 15 days to complete a complaint so I pointed out that again as a reasonable adjustment to accommodate my disability she would have to accommodate it even if it meant changing their policy as a reasonable adjustment : “If your disabled their is a duty to change their procedures to remove barriers faced because of disability” but she could choose to reject it or honour reasonable adjustments and stated that I had ‘substantially more parts of a complaint to submit’. I explained why due to illness/disability I needed reasonable adjustments to do so.

She stated so you have more to submit okay.

She ended the call by saying she would get back to me in due course.

Again I was waiting for her to accept or reject my request for reasonable adjustments to proceed to investigate and obtain a “full” complaint and get back to me as she said in due course then to receive a shocking letter 3 days later “concluding my complaint” to my absolute shock and horror. They had only had a partial complaint yet concluded it.

The content of the letter is illegible, unreadable, in comprehensible by myself , nor can anyone who assists me read it. A qualified nurse threw her hands up in the air and simply could not make any sense of it only that certain comments “compound the very discrimination I was complaining about”.

Hema Johal after speaking to me on the phone and “ascertaining that there was “substantially more” to add to the complaint of disability discrimination and professional misconduct of the FCA Jodie Rees and her manager Andrea Walters wrote to Hilary Barret Assistant Director in A4/ A10/A11:

Hema Johal to Hilary Barrett: 28/11/18 @ 13.55

Good afternoon,

Please find attached draft complaint response for your consideration. It’s quite long but most of it is the complaint itself. I am quite keen to “get this completed as soon as possible as I am receiving quite a lot of emails from the SU in relation to her complaint.

There are no action points,

Hema Johal
Customer services manager
National business centre

Hema Johal did not inform her in this email she had been told by me hours earlier there was more to complain about.

Hilary Barrett responded the same day 28/11/18 @ 16.08

I approve this letter to go out.
Hilary

Cafcass have now closed my complaint and expect me to waste the public purse taking the complaint to the Ombudsman and my MP who is interestingly the shadow minister for early years.

Cafcass FCA, Manager CST have failed to meet their statutory obligations under the 2010 Equality Act: discriminating and compounding discrimination throughout the organisation.

I note : Hema Johal CST manager stated she was “unsure” if I’d withdrawn my complaint (her confusion not mine) on 19th November yet she waited in an unsure state for “9” days to introduce herself and seek clarification I was not withdrawing my complaint , in a complaints procedure she states has to be investigated in 15 days.

On the 9th day after a brief 8 minute 7 second phone call to introduce herself and seek clarification from me. Which she then ignored clarification of reasonable adjustments and proceeded to conclude her investigation the same day she introduced herself without obtaining full complaint and disregarding “all” requests for reasonable adjustments.

Subsequently I received the letter 3 says letter. Therefore this demonstrates that the Cafcass complaints procedure rushes to respond within 15 days to the detriment of disregarding their statutory obligations under of the 2010 Equality Act thus the complaints procedure is not accessible as it stands to disabled service users/ non accessible and discriminatory.

They then abdicate their responsibilities expecting disabled service users to find recourse through MP’s and the Parliamentary and Health service Ombudsman adding pressure to disadvantaged disabled service users and at the cost of the public purse simply because they do not undertake statutory obligations in their own complaints procedure because the CST based in Coventry do not provide reasonable adjustments by way of “face to face meetings” by travelling around the UK to provide a face to face meeting as a reasonable adjustment as is the case here.