Cafcass chief to step down

Chief executive Anthony Douglas will leave his post in March 2019

Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas is to step down from his role next year.

Douglas has been the Cafcass chief since 2004. Throughout his time at the family court advisory service, the organisation has gone through a continuous journey of improvement, during which the organisation was deemed inadequate in 2009, but crowned ‘outstanding’ by Ofsted almost 10 years later.

Upon the publication of Ofsted’s latest report on the service, Douglas said Cafcass had reframed most of what it did “in terms of impact upon children”.

Cafcass has also been consistently praised for its innovative use of data and technology.

Douglas said: ““My job at Cafcass has been a privilege and our task now, after achieving ‘outstanding’ in our recent Ofsted inspection, is to take our service to children to the next level.

“I will continue to give my all until my last day and look forward to helping our next CEO get up and running when the time comes.”

He will step down in March 2019.

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2 Responses to Cafcass chief to step down

  1. Ann Hicks June 27, 2018 at 10:31 pm #

    I can’t work out how it can be said that throughout Mr Douglas’ time at Cafcass “the organisation has gone through a continuous journey of improvement”. Mr Douglas joined in 2004, yet five years later, in 2009, Cafcass was deemed inadequate. The so called ‘improvement’ is only in the last 9 years.

  2. Hilton Dawson June 28, 2018 at 7:44 am #

    Superb work from a fine man.
    This is a mega social work achievement out of the most difficult time. It shows the benefit of allying first class Management to profound social work values & applying this consistently over time.
    Every other social work organisation should listen & learn.
    Well done Anthony Douglas.