Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

1) Please provide a copy of your policy or internal guidance issued to relevant employees in relation to Court Appointed Guardians and their attendance at court hearings in s31 Care Proceedings. To clarify, does a Cafcass manager have to agree the Guardian should prioritise other casework instead of attending court?
a. Please advise if this is something is a matter decided centrally by Cafcass and applies to all Guardians employed by Cafcass or devolved to its area teams for them to adopt their own policy/guidance
b. Please include any information if the policy/guidance for example differs for Contested ICO hearings, CMHs, IRHs and Final Hearings

2) Please provide copies of any and all internally issued material such as 'guidance' or 'tips' created to help employees of Cafcass when required to attend Court for the purpose of giving oral evidence that is available to employees to access

3) I note from other public FOI requests made to Cafcass that you have an 'interview plan for the telephone call/visit to both parties in preparing safeguarding letters' document which 'provides structured questions for risk screening telephone calls in private law work to first hearing (WTFH) cases.'
Please provide a copy of this document but that relates to s31 Care Proceedings work

Yours faithfully,
Alison Melville

Dear Governance,

Please provide Interview Plan EIT Telephone Calls 1 instead of 2 please

I asked in relation to public law cases, not private law.

Thank you in advance

Yours sincerely,

Alison Melville