The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service hopes to make staff a “realistic” pay offer and stop case backlogs from rising, despite its financial woes, writes Mithran Samuel.

In an interview with Community Care, chief executive Anthony Douglas said emergency financial measures had significantly lowered a projected overspend of £4 million for 2005-6.

He now hopes to make staff a “realistic offer”, with pay negotiations expected to open next week.

In a letter to Douglas last week, Napo and Unison reiterated warnings that a serious dispute would be inevitable if Cafcass made an “unacceptable offer”.

Douglas also said that Cafcass’s financial troubles had not yet led to an increase in backlogs, despite a freeze on all inessential recruitment and reduced use of self-employed practitioners.

However, he warned that it would have to increase spending in 2006-7 on training, IT infrastructure and salaries, saying that Cafcass’s pay was “very uncompetitive” in some areas.

This would necessitate a smaller, more productive workforce, assuming its government grant increased by no more than inflation next year, he said.

Later this month Douglas will publish a strategy for reforming working practices, which will include greater scrutiny of practitioners’ performance and productivity, and seems destined to increase tensions with staff.