PRESENT CAFCASS GUIDELINES TO BE EXTENDED FOR ANOTHER YEAR

[Alison J Stevens]

The Cafcass guidelines that came out recently, too compensate for the
higher than normal rise in care proceedings, will continue for another
year.
Anthony Douglas, chief executive of Cafcass, speaking at the House of
Commons on Tuesday 6th September, stated to MPS, that Sir Nicholas
Wall, President of the family Division of the High Court,and himself
will be making a statement, extending the present guidelines,this will
take place before the end of the month.
Mr Douglas, suggested that the high levels of referrals have continued,
with figures for August 2010 were 766,as compared to 671, at the same
time last year.
Mr Douglas also said that the first Guidelines, had helped his
Organisation to reduce the backlog of cases, that required Guardians to
be allocated to cases, another statement proclaims that there was only
150 cases that required the input of a Guardian, to family court cases.

My opinion is that there must be a lot more cases requiring a Guardian
appointed, than the figures given, because why would they be
contemplating, extending the current legislation for another year?
Guardians should be appointed within a week of a case, entering the family court arena.
I will be e mailing, all the Solicitors that represent PAIN clients, to
ask, them how long the waiting list is, for Guardians to be appointed
to cases in their area.
It would be interesting for others to put a freedom of information
request into their local Cafcass offices to see if Mr Douglas figures
tally.

Value-cafcass.