Cafcass inappropriately disclosed information at a hearing in the Family courts

What happened

Ms G discovered that her ex–partner had made an application to the Family courts for a contact order with her child. Ms G had safeguarding concerns about her ex–partner and did not want him to be given direct contact. Cafcass produced an introductory report for the court, which summarised the allegations Ms G had made, as well as some counter–allegations made by Ms G's ex–partner.

The court subsequently directed Cafcass to carry out work to begin the process of reinstating contact between Ms G's child and the father. Cafcass had a number of conversations with the parties in the months following the court's direction. Ms G complained to Cafcass that it had not presented all of the allegations she had made about her ex–partner. Ms G said Cafcass had not properly looked into her ex–partner's behaviour.

Ms G was unhappy that she was being instructed to make her child available for contact with her ex–partner. She also complained that Cafcass had inappropriately disclosed information about her to her ex–partner. Cafcass told Ms G that if she wanted to challenge the professional judgment of one of its officers, she must do this in court. Cafcass told Ms G that it did not consider it had inappropriately disclosed information about her because she had disclosed the information herself in open court. Ms G wrote to Cafcass to disagree with its findings, and explained that it was wrong to say she had disclosed the information in open court. Cafcass told Ms G that she had reached the end of its complaints process and she should therefore refer her complaint to us.

What we found

We partly upheld this complaint. We agreed with Cafcass that the concerns Ms G had about her ex–partner and his contact with her child were matters that had to be considered by the court. We told Ms G that it was only the court that could make a binding decision. Cafcass had reasonably brought to the court's attention the allegations and counter–allegations made by the parties. When we proposed investigating the complaint, Cafcass realised that its initial response had contained an inaccuracy about what Ms G had said in open court. Cafcass acknowledged this mistake to us, but we considered that it should have apologised to Ms G for the mistake. We noted that Ms G had already told Cafcass about the error, so it had previously been given an opportunity to correct matters before she came to us.

Putting it right

Cafcass apologised to Ms G.