Section 7 report

Does anyone know what a section 7 report is concerning children?

Hello have a read of this,
www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1989/ukpga_19890041_en_2

When considering children cases a judge will sometimes ask for further information in the form of a s7 report to assist the court in making a decision.

There is no standard s7 report but typically they cover background information about the family's circumstances. The Court Welfare Officer will gather background information from schools and the social work department if there has been any involvement with them. Also the child protection register is checked, as is the National Probation Service to see if parties are known to them.

Interviews with the parents are held children and part of the report will document what was said. The information gathered is checked against the welfare checklist (s1 Children Act 1989) and the report concludes with the Cafcass officer's recommendations.

This is a welfare report which the court orders CAFCASS to prepare under Section 7 of the Children Act 1989.

Because CAFCASS is currently in crisis (when have they not been?), the courts now should order a s.7 report to answer a specific question, and should no longer order general reports. It is also the case (acknowledged in last night's excellent File on 4 programme) that CAFCASS are conducting fewer interviews with parents and children and are basing reports on a paper trail.

Although as Fiona says there are no standard reports, there is a report template which CAFCASS staff have to use so that reports are consistent (www.kittybrewster.com/family/Cafcass_Pro...mplates_Draft_v2.doc).

A majority of s.7 reports are judged to be 'inadequate'. Look at the reports on CAFCASS on the Ofsted website, or earlier ones by HMICA.

It can take months to appoint a CAFCASS FCA (Family Court Advisor) to a case and 9 months or more for the report to be prepared. According to some sources most reports are now being done by social workers drafted in to reduce the backlog; some are being prepared by students.

Lucy Reed, a barrister, says on her blog,

"You can‘t get a Guardian for love nor money round these here parts, and Judges have all but given up trying to appoint them in private law cases, along with s7 reports from either social services
or CAFCASS, opining but what‘s the point, they won‘t do it?‘. Although I have heard of some other creative judicial attempts at
plugging the gap it is truly a sorry state of affairs when a justice system that is founded on the paramountcy principle is unable to secure a Guardian to guide the court how to achieve its ultimate goal by making orders that are in the best interests of the children."

We already have Caffcass involved and have been in the past, the judge disregarded what the caffcass has said in the past. Should I be worried?

The reason we are here is that my ex is not letting me see the children and also saying they don't want to see me. They used to live with me, and things are being said about me which are not true.

As Forseti stated there is a section 7 template available.

Do not worry to much about CafCass involvement.

Cafcass are involved in my case, the backlog is absolutely ridiculous, you may feel at times that you are lost in the system, as such..

Just remember, you do get the oppotunity to cross examine the CafCass officer involved in the case. Also if you are not happy with the questions and investigations that have been carried out by CafCass, you have every right to request they ask the questions that you would like them to ask (Hope that makes sense!)

Then you have the complaints procedure...

GOOD LUCK...

A court will generally go with CAFCASS recommendations unless you can 'show cause' why the judge should not. There is often little point in complaining. See Guernsey Guy's earlier posts;

There are lots of things called "CAFCASS Reports". I am assuming that this is a Section 7 report that was produced during the course of a residence dispute.

These reports contain lots of bits and pieces. Some bits simply document what you and your ex told the CAFCASS officers. Just because they wrote down what you both said, there is no presumption that you both told the truth. Other bits document the CAFCASS officers' interaction with your child(ren). Finally, some bits document the CAFCASS officers' conclusions and the reasoning behind those conclusions.

The only bits you can complain about are errors of fact and errors of law where the CAFCASS officer has asserted a certain point of law to underline their conclusion, but the point of law concerned is wrong.

CAFCASS makes lots of errors of this sort so there would be no surprise if you had an issue with an error of fact or a doubtful grasp of the law. What you can't complain about is CAFCASS faithfully documenting something stupid or false that your ex [or the children!] chose to share with them.

If you feel that there are errors of fact or law, the place to raise these is in the subsenquent Directions hearing (or final hearing as appropriate). Your solicitor will handle this for you. By and large, there is absolutely no point in complaining to CAFCASS directly.


Here are the things you can object to:

1) Errors of Fact made by CAFCASS. For example, if CAFCASS get the gender or age of your child wrong and then use their mistake to justify a conclusion.

2) Conclusions base d on inadequate facts or misunderstandings. For example, if a conclusion is drawn out of nowhere, with no supporting facts, or facts that support a different conclusion. The error of Fact might be a misunderstanding of the law. I once saw a CAFCASS report that said "because the two parents do not have a good working relationship, a Shared Residence Order would not be possible". This conclusion is base d on an incorrect understanding of the law (and was actually rejected by the judge).

3) Factual or logical inconsistencies in the report.

What you cannot object to is your ex [or the children] saying things to CAFCASS which you believe are not true. CAFCASS are merely noting, factually, what has been said.

The court will draw upon the CAFCASS report in its entirety to reach a conclusion. Your ex can and will be cross-examined on the CAFCASS report and if the things he has said are important, and it can be shown that he has lied, then his case will suffer.

www.wikivorce.com/divorce/Divorce-Advice...Cafcass-report/Page- 2.html