Caseloads have fallen at Cafcass, but social workers are continuing to struggle with work pressures, according to a survey.
The family court body said that the average caseload for social workers in its long-term teams fell from 21.7 in spring 2022 to 19.9 in May 2023, before dropping further, to about 18 now.
For practitioners managing work up to the first hearing in private law, caseloads fell from 45.5 in spring 2022 to 38 as of May 2023, and then to 37 in May 2024.
Little change in reported overtime since 2021
However, 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.The results showed little change from a similar survey of FCAs in 2021, when 88% of respondents said they had done additional hours they had been unable to take part, of whom 89% said this happened frequently.
FCAs in long-term teams surveyed by Napo reported average caseloads of 21.5, above the average for all practitioners.
Fall in demand and action on caseloads
The number of cases open to Cafcass hit a peak of 37,611 in April 2021 on the back of high levels of demand and substantial delays to family court proceedings caused by the pandemic.Numbers have since fallen by 24%, to 28,504 in July 2024, while Cafcass has also taken steps to tackle caseload levels among FCAs, a point registered by Ofsted in its inspection of the body earlier this year.
These have included applying a prioritisation protocol in areas of high demand, where lower-priority private law cases are overseen by a service manager until they can be allocated to an FCA.
It has also introduced post-assessment hubs in every region; these involve managers overseeing cases for which the work ordered by the court has been completed but a trial is at least six weeks away or not listed, removing them from FCAs' caseloads.
FCAs' concerns over practice 'bureaucracy'
However, respondents to Napo's survey said their workloads meant they lacked time for reflection or had to cut corners in their practice, while some warned they were experiencing stress or sickness to the point of resigning.Besides the number of cases held by social workers, Napo said a recurring theme from responses was that expectations were being 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 is happening to them.
In its inspection, 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".
What FCAs see as a manageable caseload
When asked what would be a safe caseload, the average answer given by respondents to the Napo survey was 17.4.The union called for Cafcass to reduce caseloads to 17-18, and urged "a rebalancing of priorities to give practitioners more time to work with families and increase managers availability to provide effective support and supervision".
In response, a Cafcass spokesperson said: "We have actively reduced caseloads for our social workers. This was reflected in their feedback to Ofsted inspectors earlier in the year. We understand the importance of protecting social workers from unmanageable caseloads, which is why we set a cap during the pandemic when the courts were struggling to conclude proceedings and why we introduced the prioritisation protocol."
'Further reducing caseloads is a management priority'
However, the spokesperson pointed out that about 40% social workers in long-term teams held more than 20 cases, which is the level the organisation believes enables relationship-led practice."So, we are not yet where we want to be in every part of the country," they added. "Further reducing caseloads is a management priority in those service areas where the average caseload is higher than the national average, not losing our focus on the needs of children and families.
"We are working with our partners in the family justice system to reduce demand and the additional work caused by delayed proceedings. We are also in the process of introducing a framework for a balanced workload, which will reflect what we see is reasonable and fair to expect of a confident and competent social worker at Cafcass."
The spokesperson said Cafcass planned to "work collaboratively with our family court advisers and children’s guardians, and with our trade union partners to achieve our intention to reduce their average caseload to 18-20 active children’s cases in all our service areas".
Napo general secretary Ian Lawrence said that, while the union was disappointed by the survey results, it was "pleased that senior managers have shown a willingness to engage on the findings".
