Annual Report 2006-2007 - Cafcass

Transforming the organisation
Objective 1
Becoming a more strategic organisation in order to
represent children and their interests
We are now confident that we have put in place the building
blocks for a strong future. A number of key strategies,
frameworks and policies, which have been agreed through
consultation with staff, now support the delivery of our
services and our focus on children’s interests. We are
developing a stronger culture of self-assessment so
that we can continually improve our services rather than
relying on inspection and audit alone.
Organising for Quality We are continuing to empower
local service delivery through our change programme
Organising for Quality, which builds on proposals outlined
in the 2005–06 Cafcass consultation Every Day Matters.
The programme includes freeing up our Service Managers
to offer more practice support to frontline practitioners,
by shifting some of their administrative work to Office
Managers. It also sets out to create three corporate
support services covering the North of England, Central
England and the South of England respectively, which
will create a more efficient and effective service. We will
implement this in 2007–08.
Quality assurance In 2006–07 we implemented our
Quality Assurance Framework, following a thorough
consultation. This is a systematic approach to identifying
and responding to the needs of service users by providing
an appropriate service consistently and to agreed
standards. Given the independent nature of our work,
our ability to demonstrate quality is vital. However, it is
important that our quality assurance is flexible, supports
service delivery and allows for an approach based on
continuous improvement of services. As well as investing
in a baseline audit of frontline practice we have updated
our Quality Assurance Framework to reflect experiences
of using it and to focus on new areas of work such as
dispute resolution.
Accountability Over the past year we have taken a
proactive approach towards corporate governance by
working towards promoting a culture of openness and
accountability. Corporate decisions and performance
reports are placed on our intranet and we have a robust
publication scheme on our website, as required under
the Freedom of Information Act. A total of eight Board
meetings, one extraordinary meeting, one Board away day
and an open meeting were held during the year.
We have completed the implementation of our electronic
Case Management System (CMS) in all of our regions and
we are now able to collect more robust data. This supports
our desire to be more transparent and accountable and we
continue to publish performance reports internally and to
our external partners and stakeholders.
Child focus Our National Standard 5 is children’s active
involvement and we have made considerable progress
in strengthening the voice of children in our work.
We have clearly set out our commitment to children’s
rights through the leadership of our Children’s Rights
Director, a national team of Children’s Rights Champions
supported by Participation Workers and our Children’s
Rights Strategy. There is a clear work plan, which is being
reviewed and monitored by children and young people. The
Children’s Rights team has actively ensured that all our
policies and practice models are child-centred.
We have adopted clear principles and procedures for the
active participation of children and young people, as set
out by Participation Works 5 . In addition there are national
good practice guidelines, agreed in collaboration with
children, on how they should be involved.
Young People’s Board In August 2006, we put in place a
Young People’s Board to help inform the direction of our
work. Ten young people were initially recruited based
on their experience of parental separation and family
breakdown, including those who had experience of local
authority care. These young people have influenced
our approaches to service provision and helped us to
understand the impact we have on their lives.
Other work with young people Young people have
delivered training on the engagement of children in
practice and contributed to a training programme on
the new Cafcass National Standards. All our major
conferences promote their views and feelings and we are
continuing to involve young people in the recruitment of
staff.
My Needs, Wishes and Feelings Our work with young
people included consideration of how their voices could
be promoted in court proceedings. With their support we
developed the My Needs, Wishes and Feelings resource
pack. My Needs, Wishes and Feelings, used alongside
other tools, can help a young person share their feelings
directly with the court, if they wish to do so.
My Needs, Wishes and Feelings has been welcomed by
many of our partners and several judges. As a result,
the Children’s Rights team, with the support of external
partners and young people, has developed the children’s
impact statement. This aims to support and enable young
people to share their story when they have been exposed to
any incidence of direct or indirect abuse.
5 Participation Works is an online gateway to the world of children and young people’s participation
22 | Cafcass Annual Report and Accounts 2006–07