Ms S complained about a Cafcass officer's actions. When Cafcass dealt with her complaint, it told her that she should have challenged what the officer had recommended in court. When it did that, it also told Ms S that she was only allowed to contact Cafcass in writing.
What happened
Ms S complained to us about Cafcass. She said that the Cafcass officer who was assigned to her case was biased; that Cafcass allocated her case to the wrong office; that it chose the wrong people to write expert reports; that the Cafcass officer ignored important information, made mistakes, and repeated mistakes that other officers had made; that Cafcass did not follow its complaints procedure correctly; and that it threatened Ms S with its ‘vexatious complainant’ policy.
What we found
Cafcass was right to tell Ms S that her dissatisfaction with the Cafcass officer's professional judgment should be raised in court. Cafcass told Ms S that she was a potential vexatious complainant and said that she could no longer speak to it by telephone. This was unreasonable, because Ms S's behaviour was not potentially vexatious. This did not affect Ms S's case, because she was still able to contact Cafcass in writing (including email). We partly upheld the case as a result.
Putting it right
We made no recommendations on this case.
Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass)
UK
Did not apologise properly or do enough to put things right
Not applicable