The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service has backed down over plans to allow its managers to allocate cases to children's guardians with full workloads.

Draft Cafcass guidance on case management protocols recommended that appointing a child to a guardian when there was no availability among the team "even if it is not possible to begin work immediately" might be considered "preferable to non-allocation".

But this led to concerns that Cafcass was trying to "massage the figures" by reporting to a court that the child had been allocated a guardian even though they may not have been able to begin working on the case for several weeks.

Alison Paddle, chairperson of guardians' organisation Nagalro, said it could have led to guardians being expected to take professional responsibility for a child's welfare when they were unable to work on their case.

"The child would be taken off the waiting list but wouldn't have any protection if the guardian didn't have time to read the documents or instruct the solicitor," Paddle said.

Concern over the wording was first raised in September. But in final guidance to managers published this week, the wording has been changed and any mention of allocating a case before a guardian is ready to begin working removed.

The protocol comes into force from 3 November.