Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

With reference to a link you provided in a recent FOI it appears there is no inclusion of ‘disability’ within your explanation of Anti discriminatory practice :

Cafcass : “Anti Discriminatory practice: Practitioners must be mindful of any biases that relate to gender, education, class, ethnicity, religion and wealth . Gender neutrality is crucial to ensure that relationship dynamics power imbalances underlying issues and covert conflict tactics are identified and understood in both heterosexual and same-sex relationships . Practitioners should be mindful that men and women can be both victims and all perpetrators of domestic abuse high conflict and alienation”

1. If disability has been omitted from Cafcass’ definition of anti discriminatory practice are there any plans from Cafcass to include disability within the above to ensure FCA’s are mindful of any ‘biases’ to disability ?

A ‘mental health diagnosis’ should not be considered more negatively than a health diagnosis ( both health & mental health equally considered disability if long term/substantial adverse effect within the meaning of the Equality Act). A mental Health condition ( APA) is classed as:

“A medical condition, just like heart disease or diabetes”

2. Do Cafcass have information guidelines that informed them to ensure expressions in the child impact assessment framework are free from descriptions that connote negativity when describing all medical definitions : mental & physical ? Do Cafcass hold any information on plans for consultation to reflect this in their CIAF and to prevent discriminatory practice ?

3. Does the child impact assessment framework reflect the WHO guidelines on mental/ physical health conditions ? Do Cafcass have any plans for consultation from health experts to re-evaluate the language contained in their CIAF framework to reflect WHO guidelines ?

4. Adult behaviour : Cafcass state “Adult behaviours should be defined as behaviours not classifications, diagnosis’ or Jargon.” Therefore have Cafcass any information guidelines which supports this statement to ensure their ‘evidence based assessments’ align with health guidelines to ensure there is no anti discriminatory practice i.e validity each service users full medical context is assessed not simply by FCA’s perception of behaviour which may be misconstrued where the “affective dimension” is not considered as Cafcass statement implies ?

Yours faithfully,

[Name Removed]

Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service's handling of my FOI request 'Exclusion reference to disability in Anti-discriminatory practice”

I believe that you are applying section 14 incorrectly and see no reason why you would with hold information that seeks such a serious purpose where disability has not been included in your information about anti discriminatory policy.

The balance of this request is serious in that it seeks serious information about disability; a protected characteristic not being included in anti discriminatory information Cafcass have authored which is a serious matter and particularly in the public interest for Cafcass to provide information as to why disability is excluded in information available to a large workforce which may cause bias towards disabled persons in practice if it remains excluded, whilst it is excluded or where it has been excluded.

I am using freedom of information in a legitimate way. It is clear Cafcass have excluded disability within the information I have provided therefore please provide a clear response.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...

Yours faithfully,

[Name Removed]

Dear Governance,

I believe it is a requirement of Data Protection law to say whether you do or do not hold this information.

Embarrassing as this may be for you to acknowledge you are incorrectly applying exemption.

As per my request you omit disability from your anti discriminatory practice. This may indeed demonstrate why discrimination towards people with disabilities happens. Disability is a protected characteristic under 2010 Equality Act and embarrassing as it may be for Cafcass to be excluding disability in anti discriminatory practice from a large workforce you have not given good enough reasons to say whether or not you are going to ‘add disability’ to your anti discriminatory practice to protect and prevent service users from any subjection to discrimination.

Regardless of whether you add this information my initial request clearly shows CAFCASS do not include disability in an anti discriminatory practice statement. This request serves to obtain information to clarify if Cafcass can provide an anti discriminatory practice statement to ‘protect’ disabled service users from bias and prejudice and disability discrimination from Cafcass from the inception of your anti discriminatory practice statement until Cafcass ‘adds’ disability.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]

Dear Governance,

I believe it is a requirement of Data Protection law to say whether you do or do not hold this information and reasonable to ask if your organisation has plans to add this information; particularly given disability is a protected characteristic.

Embarrassing as this omission may be for Cafcass you are incorrectly applying exemption to my request. A service user being discriminated against by an organisation who excludes disability from their anti discriminatory statement is not vexatious by seeking information which where disability is omitted demonstrates why service users in reality are subject to actual discrimination.

As per my request you omit disability from your anti discriminatory practice. This may indeed demonstrate why discrimination towards people with disabilities in reality happens because the information available to your workforce is not inclusive of disability. Disability is a protected characteristic under 2010 Equality Act and embarrassing as it may be for Cafcass to be excluding disability in anti discriminatory practice from a large workforce you have not given good enough reasons to say whether or not you are going to ‘add disability’ to your anti discriminatory practice to protect and prevent service users from any subjection to bias and discrimination. Disruption is more likely to be experienced by discrimination towards disabled service users lives and it is ridiculous to suggest that Cafcass would be disrupted by providing a very simple answer to my request which could be answered in a simple sentence i.e Cafcass do or do not have plans to add disability to their anti discriminatory statement. It as simple as that and far easier to answer than incorrectly apply lengthy reasons for exemption.

It would be in the public interest, particularly for disabled service users to be provided with information that Cafcass plan to add disability to their anti discrimination statement or simply to state they have no plans to include it as disability discrimination is unlawful.
Therefore:

1. Do Cafcass plan to ‘add’ disability to their anti discriminatory practice statement or will it remain excluded ?

Regardless of whether you add this information my initial request clearly shows CAFCASS have not included disability in an anti discriminatory practice statement. This request serves to obtain information to clarify if Cafcass can provide an anti discriminatory practice statement to ‘protect’ disabled service users from bias and prejudice and disability discrimination from Cafcass from the inception of your anti discriminatory practice statement until/if Cafcass ‘adds’ Disability to their anti discriminatory statement to protect disabled service users in line with 2010 Equality Act.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]

Dear Governance,

Additionally please confirm that Cafcass governance responding to FOIA requests and Cafcass is subject to schedule 19 of the Equality Act ?

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]

Dear Governance,

Please refer to:
House of Lords: Disability in the UK: rights and policy debate on 28th June 2018.

This may inform your organisation.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]

Dear Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Children and Family Court Advisory Support Service's handling of my FOI request 'Exclusion reference to disability in Anti-discriminatory practice

You have incorrectly applied S14 twice, interchanged your own wording, but finally when pressed acknowledged you will pass exclusion of “Disability” over to the relevant team where previously disability was INVISIBLE in your principle underlying private law which “DISABILITY” being one of the 9 PROTECTED characteristics is unacceptable for a National Organisation tasked with representing children in the family courts. The public sector duty applies to ALL the NINE groups of protected characteristics. If there is no EQUALITY for disability there can be no meaningful Equality for children. In bringing you to acknowledge this I had to be persistent and there is a need for persistence in that you provide information CAFCASS holds in questions 1, 2 and 3 as it is in the public interest for you to provide this information and in the interests of EQUALITY for ALL children and families.

If you do not hold information to questions 1,2 and 3 then state this instead of incorrectly applying S14 to demonstrate honesty, transparency and accountability.

Every request that pertains to EQUALITY and your PSED seeks serious purpose and is child focused.

Yours faithfully
[Name Removed]

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/e...

Yours faithfully,

[Name Removed]

Dear Governance,

You have incorrectly applied s14

Making an incorrect opinion about vexatious is a poor excuse for invisibility of disability, lack of demonstration CAFCASS have regard for WHO guidelines, inability to demonstrate health :physical mental health are equal.

Lack of application of Equality Act is unlawful but invisibility of disability in a national organisation is ‘unheard of’.

Yours sincerely,

[Name Removed]