Information request about investigations relating to Cafcass in the last five years
Thank you for your email of 21 January 2015 in which you requested the following information:
Please advise how many times the PHSO, in relation to complaints it has received about Cafcass, has found in favour of complainants and judged the service provider (Cafcass) to be at fault. Please include and detail what those recommendations where, and whether they were acted upon by Cafcass or not, and if not acted upon what follow-up actions PHSO took. Please detail this by region, for the last 5 years to date.
Please also advise what actions the PHSO can put in place if it feels it cannot fully investigate a complaint it has received about CAFCASS itself.
Please also advise of any external agencies the PHSO has used to assist it in investigating complaints it has received about Cafcass.
Please also advise of any external agencies the PHSO has engaged to externally investigate complaints it has received about Cafcass.
Please find attached a copy of statistical data that provides the information relating to Cafcass. We record complaints about Cafcass and do not specifically record which region it relates to. That means in order to extract that information for you, we would need to go through each of the cases, identified. As this would exceed the appropriate time/cost limit, this information is exempt under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).
Relating to your second query, there is nothing held by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) that would answer your specific question. That being said, the PHSO does hold more general guidance which I have attached for your information.
Moving finally to your third and fourth queries, I can confirm that the PHSO has not engaged any external agencies to carry out any part of the investigation process on its behalf. As such the PHSO does not hold any recorded information on this subject.
I hope the information is helpful.
FOI/DP Officer
Parliamenatary and Health Service Ombudsman