Our Annual Report and Accounts for 2018-19 have now been laid before both houses of Parliament

Our Annual Report and Accounts 2018 - 2019 have now been laid before Parliament. They provide a summary to Parliament and the public on our activity for the financial year, including our work, our aims and our performance.

Key facts and figures from this year’s report include:

• We worked with 133,850 children and young people across England
• We continued to meet all of our KPIs, including allocation in public and private law, and report filing times for private law
• Demand for private law increased by 5.6% compared with the previous financial year, and 8.9% higher than the cases received during 2016-17
• Demand for public law decreased 4.8% compared with the previous financial year, and by 7.3% compared to the demand in 2016-17
• The average duration of our involvement in public law increased from 29 weeks (2017-18) to 30 weeks, and in private law increased from 18 weeks to 19 weeks
• 72% of cases audited were assessed as ‘outstanding’ or ‘good’, a 6% increase on 2017-18. Work graded as not meeting the required standards was 5% (481 cases) which was a decrease of 2% compared to 2017-18 (7%).

The report covers the development of our refreshed strategic plan, reflects the departure of our former Chief Executive Anthony Douglas and notes alliances to improve access to family justice information. Key practice developments such as the launch of the Child Impact Assessment Framework (CIAF) and our ‘How it Looks to Me’ app are also highlighted.

The Annual Report and Accounts were approved by the Cafcass Board on 12 June, subject to any changes from the National Audit Office (NAO). The accounts were signed off by the NAO on 19 July, with no issues recorded.

An easy read version of the Annual Report and Accounts will follow, pulling out the headlines from the year and making our information easier to access.