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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.