Cafcass failed to give the correct documents to its court duty officer for a court case

What happened

Mr and Mrs B wanted contact with their grandson after his mother stopped the previous arrangements, so they went to court to enforce those arrangements. The Cafcass court duty officer was asked to get involved by the court, but Cafcass had not sent him the necessary paperwork beforehand. The officer put forward a compromise solution to the visiting arrangements in court which the court accepted. Mr and Mrs B complained about that, because they said that it had set matters back by months. They also complained about the officer's attitude immediately after the hearing.

Cafcass did not uphold Mr and Mrs B's complaint. It said that if they had wanted to challenge what the Cafcass officer said, they should have done so in court.

What we found

The Cafcass officer was right to get involved, and it was reasonable for him to try and put forward a compromise solution. However, Cafcass realised that the officer should have had certain documents relating to Mr and Mrs B, but it had not sent them to the court. The court duty officer was therefore put in a situation in which he had to make recommendations about the case without knowing much of the background.

Cafcass confirmed that since this case happened, its court duty officers have access to all the electronic files for a particular case via a portable tablet device.

Cafcass was right to tell Mr and Mrs B that they should have challenged the court duty officer's recommendations in court. We also found that Cafcass badly handled Mr and Mrs B's complaint, because it failed to identify the mistakes that we found. We partly upheld the complaint.

Putting it right

Cafcass apologised to Mr and Mrs B.