CAFCASS - Annual Report
Posted by News Editor
Wednesday, July 26, 2006

CAFCASS has published its annual report for the year 2005-06 which revealed that it acted for just over 61,000 children in that time. It also revealed that the overall number of court applications requiring their involvement reduced but there was a 4.7% increase in public law children work.

The Report, called 'A Voice for Children', was also upbeat on their performance in relation to their key performance indicators including:

• By March 2007, 70% of allocations during the month for Section 31 (care and supervision) cases should be within two days from receipt of request. They achieved 49.9% described as 'partially achieved'.
• The number of private law reports unallocated less than 10 weeks before court filing date should be no more than of 4% of the workload. 3% was achieved.
• At least 98% of all public allocations each month for all case types should be within 28 days of receipt of request. Again this was 'partially achieved' with 91%.

Announcing the report, Chief Executive Anthony Douglas stated that

We balanced our budget and delivered efficiency savings while the cases we worked on became more complex and the number of public law (care) cases increased. The demands on CAFCASS are changing. We are modernising our practice to develop early intervention and conflict resolution services to deliver better outcomes for the children and families we work with at a critical stage in their lives.'