Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS)

3. Mr B complains about the actions of the Family Court Advisor (FCA) involved in his family court case.

4. He says the advisor was biased towards him, dismissed his safeguarding concerns about the other parent, and behaved unprofessionally whilst compiling a Section 7 report for the court. He also says his 2022 complaint to Cafcass about this was not properly investigated or taken seriously.

5. Mr B has told us he has been emotionally and mentally traumatised by the events he complains about, and this has impacted on his relationship with his children.

6. As a result of making his complaint, Mr B seeks an investigation into his concerns, and the removal of the FCA from their post.

7. Mr B was involved in a family court case in which the court asked Cafcass to provide an independent ‘Section 7’ welfare report on what disputed child arrangements should be. This was provided to the court in February 2022. An addendum report (extra supplementary information) was then requested by the court and provided by Cafcass in September 2022.

8. In November 2022, Mr B complained to Cafcass about the professional and personal conduct of the FCA towards him during the compilation of the report, alleging that they spoke to him in an unacceptable manner, that they asked inappropriate questions, that they displayed bias in the report, and ignored safeguarding concerns raised by him about the other parent.

9. Cafcass provided a final response to his complaint in December 2022. It said that there was no evidence that the FCA had behaved unprofessionally towards him, that his concerns about safeguarding had already been considered by the court, and that his concerns about the content of the report had been forwarded to the court. It signposted Mr B to us should he wish to take his complaint forward.

12. Our powers are governed by the Parliamentary Commissioner Act (1967) and although this allows us to investigate public bodies, there are a number of restrictions in our powers.

13. One of the restrictions in our powers is that we cannot investigate complaints made to us more than 12 months after the aggrieved person became aware there was a problem, unless there was significant reason for them not doing so. In practice this means that if the complaint is made outside of the legal time limit, we need to see that the person complaining was not reasonably able to do so before they did.

14. Mr B was aware of a problem by the time the addendum report was completed in September 2002. He made his complaint to Cafcass in November 2022 and received a final response in which he was signposted to our services in December 2022. He complained to us in July 2025, more than two and a half years after the final response.

15. We asked Mr B about the reasons he did not make his complaint to us sooner and he told us he had experienced significant emotional and mental health challenges throughout a lengthy court case and also been a victim of domestic violence.

16. It is clear that Mr B has experienced emotional and mental health difficulties throughout the duration of his family court case, and our decision is not intended to undermine those difficulties. It remains; however, that the complaint was made so far outside of the legal time limit that we consider he could have made his complaint to us much sooner than he did. We have seen no indication that he was unable to approach us before July 2025 and for this reason we have decided not to take any further action on his complaint.

17. We should also explain that if we had been able to investigate Mr B’s complaint, we would have been unable to achieve the disciplinary outcome sought in any event as we are excluded from considering any personnel related matters under the Act. We would also have been excluded for legal reasons, from investigating any matters previously considered by the court, including Mr B’s dissatisfaction with the content of the Section 7 report.

18. In summary, we have decided not to take any further action on Mr A’s complaint because it is outside of our time limit.

19. We appreciate this is not the outcome Mr B would have been looking for when making the complaint to us. We hope we have explained the reasons for our decision and reassure him that we have considered his complaint as far as we are able to do so. We wish him the best for the future.

1. We have carefully considered Mr B’s complaint about Cafcass and have decided not to take any further action as it is outside of our legal time limit.

2. We hope the information in this statement reassures Mr B we have considered all of his information and clearly explains the reasons we have decided not to take further action on his complaint.