£3,500 pay rise for Cafcass social workers sought by unions

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Napo and UNISON lodged the claim last week, saying it was also designed to address what they said were growing pay gaps between family court advisers (FCAs) and local authority social workers, sustain productivity and morale at Cafcass and provide appropriate reward for what the unions alleged had been increases in workloads.

The claim would amount to a rise of £3,500 for anyone who earns less than £58,000, meaning this is what would be received by FCAs, as well as several assistant service managers and service managers, should it be accepted.

However, the claim is far above the average 3.25% increase in pay that the government has set for the civil service in 2025-26, which Cafcass is covered by.

Though the family courts body has not yet been set a pay remit by its sponsor department, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), this will be determined by the civil service pay policy, so will likely be far below the level of the unions’ claim.

Lost ground on pay

Setting out their claim, Napo and UNISON said that annual wage settlements since 2010 had increased pay at Cafcass by 26.6%, less than half the 61.2% rise in the cost of living, as measured by retail prices index (RPI), “significantly [reducing] the value of staff wages”.

According to the government’s preferred consumer prices index (CPI) measure of inflation, prices rose by 50% from 2010-24.

The unions also claimed that Cafcass social workers were “generally paid less than local authority social workers, despite doing work that is just as complex and often more emotionally demanding”.

Though they did not publish data on this comparison, annual pay settlements for the majority of council practitioners in England have been higher than those for Cafcass counterparts over most of the past decade.

‘Increased workloads’ claim

Napo also claimed that Cafcass practitioners were experiencing “dwindling resources, soaring caseloads, and morale often teetering on breaking point”, against the background of “unprecedented changes in working practices”.

A survey of family court advisers (FCA) by trade union Napo in June 2024 found that 93% of staff had worked extra hours in the previous four weeks that they had not been able to take back. Of this group, 86% said this happened frequently.

Napo said a recurring theme from survey responses was expectations placed on staff to “complete an increasing number of tasks, many of which were seen by practitioners as overly bureaucratic”.

In this regard, respondents referred to the level of form-filling required for each case, quality assurance activities and aspects of Cafcass’s Together for Children practice model, such as writing introductory and endings letters to children and developing storyboards to explain to children what was happening to them.

However, in an inspection last year, for which Cafcass was rated outstanding, Ofsted found that the model had been “instrumental in promoting practice that is kind, sensitive and respectful…that has children’s welfare and safety at the forefront of thinking” and had been “embraced by an overwhelming majority of the workforce”.

Latest data on caseloads

As of the the end of March 2025, average caseloads for full-time equivalent (FTE) FCAs in long-term teams was 18.2, down from 18.8 in March 2024, according to Cafcass data. For work to first hearing teams in private law, the average was 32.4, compared with 37.7 in March 2024.

Cafcass sees a caseload of 20 or less for FTE practitioners in long-term teams as enabling relationship-based practice. As of March 2025, 36.7% of FCAs had caseloads above this limit, down 8.7 percentage points on the figure 12 months earlier.

However, the unions said that current workload levels put “morale of the workforce at risk and poses a long-term threat to Cafcass’s ability to provide a consistent quality of service”.

Social worker turnover at Cafcass has been relatively stable in recent years at about 15%, with 216 FCAs leaving the organisation in 2024-25 and 182 joining. By comparison, the turnover rate for local authority children’s social workers in England in the year to September 2024 was 13.8%, down from 15.9% over the previous 12 months.

Cafcass awaiting pay remit from ministry

In response to the claim, a Cafcass spokesperson said: “We have received the pay claim submitted by our trade unions and are currently in the process of obtaining our formal pay remit from the Ministry of Justice.

“As an integral part of making a pay award, we will meet as we do with the trade unions every year to consider the claim and what is possible for Cafcass within the pay guidance rules. There is no further update available at this time.”