Parliamentary Search

Written question asked by Julie Morgan (Labour) on Monday, 5 March 2007, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Wednesday, 7 March 2007. It was answered by Parmjit Dhanda (Labour) on Wednesday, 21 March 2007 on behalf of the CAFCASS.

Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service

Question
(3) how many vacancies there are for (a) private law and (b) public law in each of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service regions.
Answer

These are matters for the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). Anthony Douglas, the Chief Executive, has written to my hon. Friend with this information and a copy of his reply has been placed in the House Library.Letter from Anthony Douglas, dated 20 March 2007:"I am writing to you in response to the three Parliamentary Questions that you tabled recently:""126086—To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, how long it took on average to produce a section 7 case in respect of Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service proceedings in (a) 2006-07 and (b) each of the preceding five years.""CAFCASS does not collect information on the duration of cases and has not done so since it was established in 2001. For the last 3 years, CAFCASS have operated to a guideline that a section 7 report will take on average 25 hours to produce. We operate to a standard of 12 weeks in which to file all private law reports. However, local filing agreements are made between CAFCASS teams and their Courts, and these agreements fluctuate from month to month and case to case. The way the 25 hours work will be distributed across the filing period will also vary from case to case. Urgent cases are always dealt with first.""CAFCASS currently has 72 teams and at 31 January 2007, 30.6% of teams filed their report within 12 weeks. 25% of teams filed within 14 weeks. 43.1% of teams filed within 16 weeks, and 1.3% (1 team) had a filing time of over 16 weeks. This figure varies with demand, for public law cases and other types of reports ordered to be produced by CAFCASS as well as section 7 cases.""126087—To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, whether he anticipates any reduction in the number of Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service self-employed contractors in 2006-07.""CAFCASS expects that the total number of self-employed contractors for 2006-07 will be 400, a reduction of 37 on 2005-06. Exact figures will not be available until after 31 March 2007, the date which marks the end of the financial year.""126089—To ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills, how many vacancies there are for (a) private law and (b) public law in each of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service regions.""The table below indicates the vacancies as at 31st January 2007. CAFCASS does not categorise practitioners into private and public law."

Region Vacancies (whole time equivalents)
East Midlands 1.5
Eastern 9.4
Greater London 0
North East 1.85
North West 7.3
South East 1.73
South West 2.5
Southern 4.0
West Midlands 4.0
Yorkshire & Humberside 6.0

"A copy of this reply will be placed in the House Library."

Secondary information

Type
Written question
Reference
458 c941-2W; 126089
Session
2006-07
Related items
Deposited Paper HINF 2007/617
Tuesday, 20 March 2007
Deposited papers
House of Commons
Subjects
CAFCASS
Link
View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk