Government thinks Cafcass can do better

Children's minister Baroness Delyth Morgan has said Cafcass will not be allowed to axe the named guardian system while its statutory duties remain in place.

Children’s minister Baroness Delyth Morgan has said Cafcass will not be allowed to axe the named guardian system while its statutory duties remain in place.

“We need to be clear: no one can change a statutory duty other than Parliament. So Cafcass’s statutory duties remain in place,” Morgan told Community Care.

Speaking before the election was announced Morgan said: “I expect that every child should have a guardian when the key decisions are taken. I’ve said on a number of occasions that if there are cases where a child hasn’t had a guardian, I want to know about it.”

The Department for Children, Schools and Families recently announced the family courts body would receive a £10m funding boost towards improvements.

Morgan said, in return for this, she expected Cafcass to “deliver a high-quality service, given on request, at pretty much a 10% increase in resource provided by the government”.

She added: “What I know is that the additional resource we’ve made available this year in London has already resulted in a reduction of the backlog for care proceeding cases. That has really helped and I want to see how well Cafcass is going to do with this additional resource.

“What we need to be clear about is that we think they can do a lot better and they do as well. So there is reason to push them and expect more.”

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