Victoria Soeder
Cafcass National Office
3rd Floor
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx.xxx
21 Bloomsbury Street
London
Your ref: CAF 19-183
WC1B 3HF
Our ref: Gov/CAF 19-183
Tel 0300 456 4000
Email
: xxxxxxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xx
11 November 2019
Dear Ms Soeder,
Re: Freedom of Information request
Thank you for your email of 19 October 2019. You made the following requests for
information:
There now appears to be a systemic malfunction and conflict between CAFCASS obligations
under GDPR vs Family Law.
Family Law Rules say that ‘Al parties in proceedings receive copies of witness statements”.
CAFCASS FCA Jodie Rees having now acted in a role only afforded to the Judiciary
gathered witness statements but did not supply them to all parties.
Ms Rees admitting the Judge never ordered them agreed and information provided by Ms
Walters to say Ms Rees would provide the witness statements : May 2019
Now in October 2019: 1 year after Ms Rees gathered witness statements, agreed 6 months
ago to provide them CAFCASS now say having with held them in a SAR wrongly , and an
internal review wrongly (which shows CAFCASS knows fine well the FCA gathered witness
statements)
“Under GDPR, you wil only be entitled to your own personal data, and not information
relating to other people you will need to contact the court for sight of the witness statements
as part of the proceedings” therefore
1. Please provide information in Family Law rules where now a person has to contact
the court for sight of witness statements
Edward Timpson CBE Chair
Jacky Tiotto 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
Information about family law rules is not held by Cafcass.
2. GDPR then clearly conflicts with Family Law proceedings which say all parties should
be provided copies but CAFCASS are now using GDPR to with hold release of
Witness statements gathered by CAFCASS therefore please provide the information
that enables GDPR regulations to over ride Family law rules procedures ?
The information which may not be provided in responses to a Subject Access
Request (SAR) will depend on whether the information is exempt from disclosure. For
example, in certain limited circumstances information may be withheld on the grounds
that it is exempt and third party information may also be withheld or redacted from a
SAR response. As stated in Article 15 of the General Data Protection Regulation, the
right of access 3 shall not adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.
Please see the below extract from our
Subject Access Request factsheet:
You wil not be able to see information referring to someone else (a ‘third party’). This
will usually be redacted as it is personal information relating to someone else. If you
are seeking a document in full where the contents relate to another person, it may be
better to apply to the court for its its disclosure, as it will not be disclosed under a
SAR.
For more information about exemptions, please see section 10 of the
Subject Access
Request Policy. Please also see section 5 of th
e Subject Access Request Policy for
information about how third party information is handled.
Cafcass complies with data protection legislation including the General Data
Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Data Protection Act 201, and family law
legislation, including the Family Procedure Rules. For more information about
Cafcass’ remit and the laws Cafcass complies with, please see the
Operating
Framework (section 1.8). It is not the responsibility of Cafcass to submit Witness
Statements of parties to other parties and the court.
3. Provide the information that enables CAFCASS under GDPR to provide release of
data under SAR of character statements which includes information relating to other
people but not witness statements as CAFCASS appear to be using GDPR in
arbitrary decision making processes?
The information which may not be provided in responses to a Subject Access
Request (SAR) will depend on whether the information is exempt from disclosure. For
example, in certain limited circumstances information may be withheld on the grounds
that it is exempt and third party information may also be withheld. As stated in Article
Edward Timpson CBE Chair
Jacky Tiotto 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
15 of the General Data Protection Regulation, the right of access 3 shall not adversely
affect the rights and freedoms of others.
For more information about exemptions, please see section 10 of the
Subject Access
Request Policy. Please also see section 5 of th
e Subject Access Request Policy for
information about how third party information is handled.
4. HMCTS and the family court have made it abundantly clear they do not provide
witness statements and they did not order them therefore why are you providing
information saying the court has to be contacted for sight of witness statements when
the court say CAFCASS must provide them ? What guidance information is
CAFCASS relying on to provide these ‘inaccurate’ responses.
Information about Cafcass’ process regarding witness statements has been provided
to you in previous responses to Freedom of Information requests.
5. The process of Ms Rees gathering witness statements is a sham creating legal and
GDPR conflict of interest. How do CAFCASS procedurally intend to put matters right
i.e impact assessment of the damage caused by this sham process and all the
serious issues it raises ? I have asked this question to HMCTS and will ask the same
to the ICO, MOJ and members of Parliament.
Instead of putting matters right CAFCASS appear to be only making matters worse to
the point they have now created a ‘systemic malfunction’ where it needs to be legally
ascertained if Family Law rules are struck out by new GDPR regulations.
The lengths CAFCASS have gone to here to cover up for a recalcitrant FCA: Ms
Rees having the sheer audacity to assume she held powers available to a judge and
acting with them beggars belief.
This leaves the public to draw their own conclusion: is this a pilot or trialling going in
behind the scenes at CAFCASS. CAFCASS can not provide any reasonable lines of
communication therefore instead of banging my head of a brick wall an open letter to
the President of the family division seems the most expedient way forward.
This is a case specific question in regards to your case and is therefore not a valid
Freedom of information request. Information about Cafcass’ process regarding
witness statements has been provided to you in previous responses to Freedom of
Information requests.
Edward Timpson CBE Chair
Jacky Tiotto 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
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
(https://ico.org.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.xx
Edward Timpson CBE Chair
Jacky Tiotto 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
Edward Timpson CBE Chair
Jacky Tiotto 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
