Clause 2 - Monitoring contact

Part of Children and Adoption Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 6:45 pm on 14 March 2006.

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Photo of Beverley Hughes Beverley Hughes Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills, Minister of State (Education and Skills) (Children, Young People and Families) 6:45, 14 March 2006

No, the CAFCASS officer will become involved in his monitoring capacity as a result of a court order. The court will order the monitoring.

I was trying to respond to what I understood the hon. Gentleman to be saying, which was that CAFCASS officers would have to do a lot of detective work—he said that they would have to be proactive. The hon. Gentleman repeated only a moment ago that the CAFCASS officer would be the middle man, the person to whom people could complain and whose job it would be to ensure compliance without there being a monitoring order. That is not the case. The court will impose a monitoring order. That order will enable the CAFCASS officer to monitor and then report back to the court. One presumes that that will occur as a result of a complaint made to the court made by parents. The court will then institute the monitoring order. That is why I said that it will be for the courts to judge how many monitoring orders will need to be made. We shall have to wait to see how things progress