October 29, 2004
Guidance to Members on CAFCASS Workloads Policy
When reading CAFCASS Workloads Policy members should refer to the guidance notes provided by Graham Walsh as follows:
Napo Members’ Guide to
CAFCASS Workloads Policy
in Relation to Practitioners
1. Introduction
1.1 This paper provides guidance, to members who are practitioners or responsible for practitioners’ workloads, on the implementation of the Workloads Policy. There is as yet far less detailed agreement in respect of Service Managers and administrators (those processes are continuing). For practitioners and those managing them the critical documents are the policy itself and Appendix B (CAFCASS Practitioner Allocation Guidelines). Napo is distributing both these documents alongside this guidance.
2. Individuals and averages
2.1 The policy requires, inter alia, that individual workloads are allocated and managed according to the experience and skills of the individual practitioner and the likely demands of the work, that decisions about work allocation will be informed by notional averages, and that variations from the norm will be the subject of discussion between practitioners and their managers.
2.2 The central concepts within Appendix B are average hours and average workloads. Neither are individualised and although this carries some risks (members and their union representatives will have to be on guard against efforts to treat an average as a minimum) it reflects the reality of practice in CAFCASS. No two reports take exactly the same time even when court and local authority variations are taken into account, some of us have less annual leave than others and we each have different periods of sick leave or training (and what we have in one year might be very different from the next). We have to have averages, or a formula so complex as to be useless. As above, how those averages translate into any particular FCA’s workload is for discussion between that FCA and their Service Manager – see also paras 2.6 – 2.8
2.3 Every full time practitioner (FCA) is treated for resource purposes as being available for casework for 1358 hours p.a. By casework is meant all reports and everything done in the course of a report (travelling, co-working, giving evidence, etc), Family Assistance Orders, all forms of dispute resolution work and court duties [Ref: App B 1.3]. The figure of 1358 was arrived at by taking away from contracted hours figures reflecting annual leave, sick leave, training (not convergence training which will be accounted separately), supervision, team meetings, non-case administration (reading this and other policies, completing travel and subsistence forms, etc, etc) – everything done as an employee that does not have a child directly involved. [Ref App B 3.1]
2.4 Part time practitioners are not expected to be available for casework in direct proportion to their contracted hours because non-case work (e.g. team meetings) does not diminish proportionately. [Ref: App B 2.2] There is no formula for identifying the available hours of a part time FCA – it is a case of reasonableness in the individual circumstances and it would be sensible for part-time workers and their managers to agree an individual understanding on hours available for casework – but it would be unusual for it to be proportionately equal to or greater than that of a full-time team colleague. So a half-time worker would not normally be expected to be available for casework as much as 679 hrs.
2.5 Appendix B uses 3 different measures of workload: allocation, throughput in a year, and cases held at any one time. Allocation and throughput can be treated as the same thing – over time cases allocated and cases completed should balance (save for those Section 7 reports allocated which do not become final reports e.g because the applicant withdraws mid-report – the time spent on them is to be accounted for, ref App B 5.3). There are timings for all the casework tasks of a FCA (below) to identify the likely throughput of any given worker. Alongside this there is a norm of 12 live cases held at any one time, fewer when throughput is faster. [Ref App B 4.2 and 5.2]. None of these timings or norms over-ride the responsibility on the employer, through the manager, to ensure that the individual practitioner’s workload is manageable within their contractual hours. They simply provide a formula for equitable resourcing and a guide to what a reasonable individual workload might be.
2.6 Within their available annual hours every FCA will have a range of casework tasks to perform whether public, private or converged. Some of these tasks have timings attached to them (see below) and some are to be measured in real time e.g. private law 1st directions appointments. Whilst workloads, expressed numerically, will vary from one worker to another according to the nature of the area covered, the nature of the cases allocated, the skills and experience of the worker, the worker’s personal situation (e.g. health or similar factors), etc, the principle is that on average the work allocated to each FCA will amount to 1358 hours worth. So a notional, average, purely Public Law worker would have an annual workload made up of:
Sec 31 reports reckoned as 133.5 hrs each
Rule 9.5 reports reckoned at 75 hrs each
Reporting Officer cases reckoned at 10 hrs each,
Other non-care reports reckoned at 53 hrs each,
plus any other form of casework not included above,
in whatever proportion added up to 1358 and provided a reasonable workload. [Ref App B 1.3, 3.1 and 9]
2.7 An equally notional Private Law worker would have an annual workload made up of:
Court duties (measured in real time)
Sec 7 reports reckoned at 25 hrs each
FAOs reckoned at 13 or 26 hrs each according to length, and perhaps
Rule 9.5 reports reckoned at 75 hrs each,
plus any other form of casework not included above,
in whatever proportion added up to 1358 and provided a reasonable workload. [Ref App B 1.3, 3.1, 5.3, 8.2 and 9]
2.8 As an example of how these calculations might work out in practice for such a notional worker, using private law as an illustration, s/he might spend 163 hrs on court duties (the last available figures suggest this is the average), spend 1,100 hrs completing 44 Sec 7 reports, spend 26 hrs on a 6 month FAO, 20 hrs on reports that do not become final reports and 49 hrs assisting colleagues with their cases.
3. Review and change
3.1 The policy was Appendix A to the report of the Workloads Group to the Partnership Committee and that report confirms that not only will implementation of the policy be reviewed quarterly in Regional Partnership Committees and the policy as a whole be reviewed after 12 months but any future policy or practice changes have to be analysed for their impact on workloads. So, for instance, if the effect of the Supervision Policy currently under discussion would be to reduce the time available for casework, average workloads would need to be reduced, all other things being equal. Similarly if, for instance, the impact of the Judicial Protocol in public law cases was to increase the average time spent per case then Napo would use that evidence to argue for a reduction in average workloads whilst senior management would be entitled to argue that average workloads should rise if the evidence pointed the other way. So not only is the policy itself up for review next year but the figures – available hours and timings per task – on which average workloads are based will be reviewed as other policies and practices change, or better statistical information becomes available.
3.2 Unless and until such changes are agreed within the framework of the Partnership Committee all concerned are obliged to operate within the principles, assumptions and timings of the Policy and Appendix B. It is not, for instance, open to any Service Manager to impose higher expectations on a team on the basis that things are different in Barsetshire. If the manager thinks that this is the case s/he needs to discuss the position with the Regional Manager for possible discussion in the Regional Partnership Committee. Because the agreement is based on averages, Napo may agree such a development in Barsetshire, providing it is well evidenced, but would require counter-balancing changes elsewhere in the region. (Equally, we have to accept that if we argue for lower workloads for a particular group of members we are probably implying higher workloads for others elsewhere.)
3.3 The formal mechanism for ensuring that management adheres to these figures is review within the Regional Partnership Committee to which a team-by-team breakdown will be given each quarter. It is open to regional management to seek to put more resources into one team or part of a team than another – we recognise that the task is more or less time-consuming according to external factors such as local authority efficiency, population density, prevalence of non-English speakers and many other factors – but by discussion and review within RPCs such decisions should be above board and within the principles of the agreement, specifically that the expectations on staff match the resources available as defined by the task timings and the hours available. At the very least, the agreement and the formulae within it give the Section an explicit basis for a trade dispute. (Previously we would have had to rely on the very amorphous concept of a reasonable workload.) Napo representatives will be fully engaged in Regional Partnership Committees in ensuring that each work unit is properly resourced.
3.4 The informal mechanism for ensuring that workloads are fair and manageable is the relationship between each FCA and her/his line manager. As above, the policy requires that deviations from the norm are the subject of discussion and informed by issues such as the worker’s experience and the nature of the work. The agreement re-enforces existing good management practice such as limiting further allocation if the cases currently being worked on are especially time-consuming, or if the FCA is under some other form of stress, or when sick leave intervenes, as examples. Because the figures used for available hours and task timings are averages these factors are already built into the calculations [ref App B 2.4]. Napo expects that SMs and FCAs will engage in a continuous process of workload review, identifying factors that might justify a workload above or below the norm. Where SMs and FCAs are not able to resolve any disagreement through normal supervision processes there is recourse to the formal grievance procedure [ref App B 2.4]. Members who remain unhappy with the management of their workload after discussion with their line manager should seek advice from their regional Napo representative.
Posted by jmcknight at 01:33 PM | Comments (0)
October 28, 2004
CAFCASS Workloads Agreement
The agreement on workloads reached between CAFCASS and the Trade Unions is set out in these two core document which are available for downloading here.
CAFCASS Practitioner Workloads Allocation Guidelines
Posted by jmcknight at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)
ANTHONY DOUGLAS ADDRESSES THE SECTION
Anthony Douglas, Chief Executive Officer for CAFCASS, addressed a meeting of the CAFCASS Section during the NAPO conference on 9th October.
Julie Doughty, editor of Family Court Journal, took some notes
Posted by jmcknight at 02:53 PM | Comments (0)
LORD FILKIN ADDRESSES SECTION AGM
Lord Filkin has recently been appointed the Minister responsible for CAFCASS. On 8th October he addressed the CAFCASS Section of NAPO at their AGM in Hove.
Julie Doughty, editor of the Family Court Journal gives a brief account of his address.
Posted by jmcknight at 02:45 PM | Comments (0)