Service chair wants inspectorate change

The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service should
no longer be inspected by the courts regulator but assessed
alongside other children’s services, MPs and lords have been
told.

Cafcass chair Baroness Pitkeathley told the parliamentary joint
committee on the draft Children (Contact) and Adoption Bill that
the service was in talks with the Department for Education and
Skills about moving out of the Magistrates’ Courts Service
Inspectorate’s regulatory regime.

This could mean the Commission for Social Care Inspection or Ofsted
taking over responsibility for regulating the service.

She said Cafcass needed to be at the heart of children’s services
arrangements so that it could intervene earlier in child custody
cases and prevent them from reaching court.