NAO slams Cafcass IT failures

In a report published on 28 July 2010, the National Audit Office says that limited use of IT and a predominance of paper files led to in efficiencies in Cafcass. In November 2008 Cafcass, which is responsible for the interests of children involved in family court proceedings in England, experienced a surge in cases following the publicity around the Baby Peter tragedy. The NAO says the organisation had to deal with an extra 200 new cases each month, an increase of around 40%. Simultaneously, courts needed advice on hundreds more children involved in family breakdowns. But the NAO found that Cafcass was "not well placed to respond efficiently and effectively" with this unexpected increase because it had not solved problems with IT systems and information management, as well as low staff morale. The limitations of its case management IT, which only records current cases and cannot be used to produce comparative statistics on previous cases, hampered Cafcass's ability to track demand and direct its resources, according the report. It also found that Cafcass managers still have concerns about the main office IT system run by Fujitsu. "The system absorbs a lot of management time and Cafcass suggests that it is yet to show significant benefits," says the NAO report. More positively, the report says that Cafcass, which has 21 service areas across England, is now implementing a £10m transformation programme which should improve its ability to deal with future fluctuations in its case load. It plans to improve existing tools, such as the case management system, and develop new IT to support flexible working. Cafcass considered a new case management system, but the £5m cost was deemed too expensive. Amyas Morse, head of the NAO, said: "Cafcass's ability to respond to the surge in demand for its services was limited by the known problems within the organisation which, had management made more and faster progress in dealing with them, could have reduced the negative effect of the rise in demand. "Cafcass's transformation programme brings together plans for major organisational improvements and offers the opportunity to improve its capacity and responsiveness to future fluctuations in demand. However, the programme needs further work if Cafcass is to rise to the enormous challenge it still faces and improve how it serves vulnerable children and families."