Guidance

Annex A: information and data request

Updated 17 December 2024

Applies to England

This data and information request will be passed to the CEO or designated deputy at the beginning of the inspection/focused visit.

Child-level data

Cafcass will be asked to provide a full list of all cases closed across the whole national organisation in the 2 weeks before the inspection beginning. The data field for each case should include:

• case ID

• case name

• gender

• ethnicity

• disability (Y/N)

• date of birth

• lead application

• law type

• case type (for example, safeguarding letter only, s7, r16.4, s25, s31 and so on)

• practitioner

• team

• service area

• local authority (public law)

• court

• file location (if not electronic)

Further documentation

Below is a list of other documents that we will request from Cafcass at the start of an inspection. When sharing, Cafcass should use the relevant item number as a prefix in the document names. This is to enable inspectors to easily identify and retrieve information.

Item number	Description
1.01	Organisational structure showing lines of reporting and accountability.
1.02	Case allocation and transfer policy and any workflow documents or flowcharts that will help inspectors understand the process following a court application in both public and private law.
1.03	Management information reports that Cafcass uses to monitor and improve performance. This should include the most recent national and regional monthly/quarterly reports and any associated improvement plans nationally and locally.
1.04	Cafcass’s arrangements to gather feedback from children and families, complaints, and serious incident notifications and what Cafcass has done in response to improve practice.
1.05	The most recent national and regional self-evaluations of practice, and any peer or similar external evaluation of practice, carried out in the last 12 months.
1.06	Cafcass strategic plan.
1.07	An outline of Cafcass’s quality assurance, performance and accountability processes and its national improvement service audits, reports and health checks. Please include an overview of your learning from national and local practice audits of work with children subject to public and private law applications carried out in the 6 months before the inspection and any associated improvement or action plans.
1.08	The workforce profile for Cafcass staff. This should include the number of qualified social workers and their post-qualifying experience; the number of vacancies for permanent staff; the number of locum and agency staff; the extent of staff turnover/stability and sickness levels; average caseloads of staff nationally and in each operational service area; and the outcome and impact of any staff survey. Include the information Cafcass uses to understand its workforce profile within teams, and in operational service areas.
1.09	The workforce development strategy, including the core training and development offer for social workers and their managers. Also include the equality, diversity and inclusion strategy, and any evaluation of its impact carried out in the last 12 months.
1.10	Cafcass’s supervision policy, including annual appraisals and practice standards for social workers and managers.
1.11	The last 3 senior leadership and Cafcass board meeting minutes.
1.12	The last 3 operational service area management meeting minutes.
1.13	Information on partnerships and commissioning.
1.14	Minutes of the national and local Family Justice Board and local safeguarding partnership minutes for the last 12 months.
1.15	A list of case-holding social workers, including the number of cases held per practitioner on the date of notification. This should include a list of all workers’ allocated cases, the number of open cases held on the day of notification and their job title. If possible, please provide this information in spreadsheet format. This list should be as up to date as possible. However, Cafcass may provide a pre-prepared version showing the position up to the Wednesday before notification.
1.16	Any data on unallocated children’s cases, and an overview of how these are managed, nationally and in operational service areas. Please include which service areas currently have a prioritisation protocol in place.
1.17	The number of rapid reviews carried out following child safeguarding incident notifications in the 12 months before the inspection and any overview of these. Please provide the last 5 examples of these rapid reviews.
1.18	User appointments and court hearings in the service areas where inspectors plan to visit to facilitate practice observations.

Cafcass audits and case documentation

1.19

A list of national and local audits undertaken in the last 6 months in both private and public law. Please specify the application type in each audit. The lead inspector will then choose a selection of national and local audits to review in the off-site part of the inspection. For those selected, we request a copy of the case plan, most recent report, supervision records and most recent visit record, to help us analyse the quality and impact of practice.