Also, with regards to services being put in – it is a well known fact that all social services budgets for Local Authorities are massively overstretched and overdrawn by millions.  They have no money available to put in the “multi-agency help” you talk of.  If parents do get help it is totally inadequate and piecemeal.  There is no financial help available to keep children supported within their families, but there seems to be plenty of money available to keep children supported in foster places, where agencies, who are often set up by social workers, are overcharging the government thousands of pounds per week for vastly inferior services, and making thousands in income and pre-tax profits for themselves.

 

3.With regards to CAFCASS.  It is a well known fact that CAFCASS have struggled with their role in the family courts.  If they are completely independent, please can you explain why Anthony Douglas the Chief Executive of CAFCASS is also the

Chairman for the British Association for Fostering and Adoption?  Isn’t this a direct conflict of interests?  I have written to Mr Douglas about this twice, but unfortunately he hasn’t had the decency to reply. 

 

4. With regards to “secret courts” having to safeguard the privacy of children.  How can you explain the many children who are featured in magazines like Adoption UK whilst still under Interim Care Orders?  Their names, and full details are published.  Then immediately after the case they can be advertised on UK Kids and other such sites where you can search for a child through a similar process as buying a dog from the RSPCA. 

 

In criminal cases involving children, the children cannot be named but what goes on in court can.  What if there is an injustice?  To say this is done to protect children is just rubbish.  Hundreds of children are being allowed to be taken from loving caring parents in “secret” courts everyday.  Parents can go through the Complaints Procedure, where The Local Government Ombudsman cannot get involved in matters relating to court proceedings.  They can appeal a court decision, but must have the judges say so to do so. They can go to the European Court of Human Rights but an adoption cannot be overturned.  They can complain about the social worker to the GSCC, but the GSCC have admitted that social workers can sometimes work under different names, and they can’t track them properly, and these people are the holders of the Social Care Register? They often refer the complaint back to the LA anyway.  The decision to be able to complain to the GSCI has been put off until April yet again. Is there anyone who these people are actually accountable to?

 

You say the law has changed so that parents can discuss their cases. This is only with their MP, and a telephone helpline.  So please do not try and make this sound as through you have stopped families being in contempt for speaking about their case. They can still be in so unjustly be charged with contempt and imprisoned. 

 

You are even putting rules in place that will make it even more difficult for children and families to find each other after the child has reached 18. The new Adoption and Children Act is such that you have to have the approval of a social worker to be able to have details of your birth family so you can trace them.  Is this to stop people making claims against the government who were unjustly adopted?  Good groups like Trackers International that help reunite families are being forced to stop helping people because they will be in breach of the law if they carry on.  It will cost thousands to become a government appointed agency that helps reunite families, and you must employ the social worker who will make the decision.   I wonder how many of the new agencies will be set up and run and by social workers, as Fostering and Adoption Agencies are?

 

Social workers are consistently breaching the 1989 Children Act the Human Rights Act, and their own guidelines.  What you are suggesting in your letters would be ideal if it was being adhered to, but it is not. The letters we are receiving at Fassit from families contain atrocities by the Social Services that I can only describe as similar to those in the Second World War.  It is an utter disgrace.  Maybe you should spend a day at a contact centre and see children clinging and begging to go home with their parents, then read the social services and contact centre reports that contain none of this. Or maybe spend a day at court and listen to the desperate, utterly devastating screams and sobs of a good decent mother when she hears her children have been lost to her for ever to strangers for adoption.  The government should hang there heads in bloody shame. 

 

Your comments would be appreciated. 

 

Yours sincerely

Fassit Families Anti Social Services Inquiry Team

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Beverley Hughes MP - Minister for Children Reply to Fassit UK – December 7th 2005

 

Thank you for your email of 3 November, raising concerns about the responses your members have received to their recent letters about care proceedings.  As I am sure you will understand, the Department receives many thousands of letters about a wide range of Government policies.  When we receive a number of letters on the same subject, we often make use of standard text, which explains Government policy on that subject. The paragraphs included in those letters do, however, seek to respond to the concerns raised by the correspondents. 

In response to your first point, the Government does appreciate how distressing it is for families when care proceedings are initiated by local authorities.  However, there is little I can add to the responses you have already received on the subjects you raise.  The decision to make a care order is indeed, one for the courts, and is not taken lightly.  While I cannot comment on the circumstances of individual cases, in all cases where a full care order is made, that is done so because a court is satisfied that the threshold of harm set out in Section 31 of the Children Act 1989 has been met. 

In your email, you make a number of allegations about exaggeration, bias and lying by employees of unspecified local authorities.  All local authorities have a formal complaints procedure.  If you wish to make a formal complaint about the actions of a local authority in a particular case, then you should make contact initially with the local authority, who will explain their procedure for you.  There is also the possibility of informing the local government ombudsman, if you feel an authority is guilty of maladministration and you have exhausted the authority's own complaints procedure.  If you believe that a court's decision is incorrect, then the appeals process would be the way to pursue this. 

You also raise concerns about the extent of support from local authorities for family carers.  Just under 10% of looked after children live with their parents, and a further 12.5% are placed with carers who are family members or friends.  The Government recognises the importance of involving families in decision making and the value of children growing up in the love and security of their own families wherever possible.  We are committed to helping local authorities to improve the use and support of family and friends carers.  Our work in the area will include the promotion of best practice and increasing the availability of information for family and friends carers. 

We are also finalising some web pages for inclusion on our Every Child Matters website www.everychildmatters.gov.uk before Christmas.  These provide information on family and friends care, including the different legal arrangements for placements, the availability of universal services and benefits, and how support may be provided by local authorities. 

You also set out your concerns about the potential for a conflict of interest for the Chief Executive of CAFCASS, on the basis that he is also the Chair of the voluntary organisation, the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF).  The appointment of the staff of CAFCASS is a matter for its Board to determine, and is subject to the same rules on appointments as any other public body.  However, it is not appropriate for the Government to comment on the appointment by voluntary organisations, such as BAAF, of their honorary officers. 

In addition, your raise various concerns about the need to improve the transparency of the family courts.  On 27 October, Family Justice Minister Baroness Ashton announced that there would be a wider consultation on the transparency of the family courts next spring.  This announcement recognised that there is a growing consensus that the family courts lack sufficient transparency and that this lays the system open to unfounded accusations of bias and injustice.  Greater openness could help refute some of this criticism and create a better understanding of the way the system works.  While some moves towards increased transparency are favoured by the senior judiciary, the Constitutional Affairs Select Committee and others, any changes would need to be carefully balanced between the need to ensure the continued protection of the family, particularly children and other vulnerable people and the wider public interest. 

The interests of children involved in family proceedings are, and must remain paramount.  The Government has pledged only to take steps to increase transparency in the family courts if it can be certain that children are protected. 

Yours sincerely

 

Looked After Children Division

Department for Education and Skills