Equality Impact Assessments

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

Under the Equality Act 2010 section 149 Cafcass is subject to the Public Sector Duty of Equality and under the The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 section 2(4) has a duty to publish information showing it complies with the Act:

(4) The information a public authority publishes in compliance with paragraph (1) must include, in particular, information relating to persons who share a relevant protected characteristic who are—
(a)its employees;
(b)other persons affected by its policies and practices.

Please provide me with Equality Impact Assessments or similar documents which show the services Cafcass provide to service users comply with the Act with respect to the protected characteristics, specifically sex, in particular please provide information in respect of:
1) DVPP, DVIP and BBR programmes commissioned and recommended by Cafcass
2) Recommendations for which which parent a child should live with and which parent a child should have contact with.
3) Recommendations for a child to have supervised contact with a parent.
4) Recommendations for a child to have indirect contact with a parent.
5) Recommendations for drug and alcohol tests.
6) Recommendations for psychological or psychiatric assessments.

Yours faithfully,

B Maloney

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

Dear B Maloney

Thank you for your email.

Please accept this as a formal acknowledgement of your Freedom of Information request which was received on 21 September 2017. Your reference number is CAF 17-134.

We aim to respond to you promptly, and at the latest 20 working days from receipt of your request. You will therefore receive a response on or before 18 October 2017.

Kind regards,

Governance Team | Cafcass
 [CAFCASS request email] |  www.cafcass.gov.uk

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

2 Attachments

Dear B Maloney,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Please find attached our response to your Freedom of Information request.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team | Cafcass

* [1][CAFCASS request email] | ü [2]www.cafcass.gov.uk 

[3]Cafcass_Logo_2014_email

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Governance - Cafcass,

Do you have or have you even produced any Equality Impact Assessments for your organisation and where do you publish these documents?

Yours sincerely,

B Maloney

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

1 Attachment

Dear B Maloney,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

As stated in our response to your Freedom of Information request
(CAF17-134), all innovation projects at Cafcass include an Equality Impact
Assessment as part of their initial proposal to ensure consideration is
given to any potential impact to staff and service user equality, however
these are not published or made publicly available as project
documentation is not published.

 

Cafcass are developing a national Equality Impact Assessment (EIA),to
ensure all key aspects of our work are properly assessed for their
potential to impact on diversity, inclusion and equality grounds, and to
make sure our work is always aligned, as far as possible, with our
priority of enhancing diversity and inclusion considerations.  However it
is not known at this point whether this document will be published or made
publically available.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team | Cafcass

* [1][CAFCASS request email] | ü [2]www.cafcass.gov.uk 

[3]Cafcass_Logo_2014_email

 

 

 

Dear Governance - Cafcass,

In your response of 18/10/2017 you stated:

"As stated in our response to your Freedom of Information request (CAF17-134), all innovation projects at Cafcass include an Equality Impact Assessment as part of their initial proposal to ensure consideration is
given to any potential impact to staff and service user equality, however these are not published or made publicly available as project documentation is not published."

Please provide copies of all Equality Impact Assessments which have been conducted as part of the initial proposal for innovation projects at Cafcass.

Yours sincerely,

B Maloney

Dear Governance - Cafcass,

I am requesting an internal review of your decision not to publish Equality Impact Assessments, the publication of which is a legal requirement under The Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011 section 2(4). This is not commercially sensitive information, particularly not for projects which are already implemented.

Please explain which exemption you are claiming under the Freedom of Information Act and how it applies to these documents which you have a duty to publish under the Equality Act.

Yours sincerely,

B Maloney

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

Dear B Maloney,

Thank you for your email which let us know that you were unhappy with the
decision made in the FOI response CAF17-147 below and requested a review
of the decision.

This email serves to acknowledge that your request was received on 20
October 2017 and will be dealt with under the terms of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000.

A Senior Officer who was not party to the original decision on whether to
release the information will conduct the internal review. An internal
review involves a review of the decision on disclosure in the original
response and the way in which the request was handled. The internal
reviewer can either uphold or overturn the original decision.

Cafcass will notify you as to the final decision made regarding your
internal review 20 working days from receipt of your request.  You will
therefore receive a response on or before 16 November 2017.

Kind regards,

Governance Team | Cafcass
G [CAFCASS request email] | ü www.cafcass.gov.uk 

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

Dear B Maloney,

Thank you for your email.

Please accept this as a formal acknowledgement of your Freedom of
Information request which was received by the Governance team on 18
October 2017. Your reference number is CAF17-156.

We aim to respond to you promptly, and at the latest 20 working days from
receipt of your request. You will therefore receive a response on or
before 14 November 2017.

Kind regards,

Governance Team | Cafcass
G [CAFCASS request email] | ü www.cafcass.gov.uk

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

2 Attachments

Dear B Maloney,

 

Thank you for your email. Please find attached our response to your
Freedom of Information request.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team | Cafcass

* [1][CAFCASS request email] | ü [2]www.cafcass.gov.uk 

[3]Cafcass_Logo_2014_email

 

 

 

 

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Dear Governance - Cafcass,

Thank you for your response where you stated:

"Cafcass does not centrally hold Equality Impact Assessments for innovations projects. These are held within the project initiation document for individual projects. In order to provide a response, each EIA would need to be manually extracted from each individual project initiation document; as Cafcass has over 60 current projects and closed projects, the cost of compliance would exceed the appropriate limit which for Cafcass is £450. 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. "

I would like to restrict the scope of my request to just the Equality Impact Assessments for the projects to commission DVIP and BBR courses from the Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) or other providers of these courses.

Yours sincerely,

B Maloney

Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

1 Attachment

Dear B Maloney,

 

Thank you for your email.

 

Cafcass's commissioning of Domestic Violence Perpetrator Programmes
(DVPPs), which is an umbrella terms which encompasses DVPPs and Building
Better Relationship (BBR) courses, is not a form of innovation project and
Cafcass does not have Equality Impact Assessments for DVPPs.

 

DVPPs are delivered in private law cases in the family courts, under
sections 11A-G Children Act 1989 (as amended by the Children and Adoption
Act 2006) as a court ordered activity. Cafcass commissions service
providers for DVPPs as court-ordered activities.

 

The DVPP providers which Cafcass contracts with must be accredited.
Cafcass commissions Respect accredited perpetrator programmes and the
Building Better Relationships course which is delivered by the Community
Rehabilitation Companies (formally Probation).

 

The Respect accredited providers all come from the voluntary or third
sector and their group programmes all meet Respect standards. Each
provider delivers their accredited version of the programme but all
address domestic abuse in intimate partner relationships and all have a
suitability assessment component and a victim support service. The
Building Better Relationships programme is delivered by the commissioned
CRCs and these programmes are accredited by the National Probation
Service.

 

Cafcass has a national network of commissioned providers which can be
viewed via our website in the [1]Commissioned Services Directory of
Resources

 

For more informaton about DVPPs, please see our [2]website.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team | Cafcass

* [3][CAFCASS request email] | ü [4]www.cafcass.gov.uk 

[5]Cafcass_Logo_2014_email

 

 

 

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Governance - Cafcass, Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service

2 Attachments

Dear B Maloney,

 

Thank you for your email. Please find attached our response to your
request for an internal review of your Freedom of Information request.

 

Kind regards,

 

Governance Team | Cafcass

* [1][CAFCASS request email] | ü [2]www.cafcass.gov.uk 

[3]Cafcass_Logo_2014_email

 

 

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