Services for children in Sussex who are caught up in divorce proceedings are inadequate and unacceptable, according to an Ofsted report.

The study of the Children and Family Court Advisory Service (Cafcass) said the organisation, which provides social work for families, placed too much emphasis on public law cases, which involve social services.

Cafcass looks after the interests of children in the family courts.

The Ofsted inspection in November and December last year looked at the South East, which covered Sussex, Kent and Surrey.

Cafcass says it has already implemented recommendations made by the report and an improvement board has been set up to oversee the changes.

Naintara Khosla, Cafcass head of service for Sussex and Surrey, is on the improvement board.

She said: "Immediately following the report there was quite a lot of despondency but I feel very hopeful and optimistic. I am reassured because I have seen the case recording and risk assessments and everything else and, in the five months since setting up the improvement board, real progress has been made."

The report made ten recommendations, including tackling delay, improving the quality of case planning and recording and offering guidance in report writing.

Ofsted inspectors said the priority given to public law cases led to serious delays in private law cases - when parents are unable to reach agreement about the arrangements for their children.

Inspectors said there was no delay in public law cases but found an unacceptable number of case files were inadequate.

Cafcass has conducted a restructuring exercise, splitting the region into two areas, separating Kent from Surrey and Sussex.

Five new practice supervisors have been recruited to support staff and the organisation has teamed-up with children's charity Coram to provide specialist advice to staff.

The ratio of frontline managers to practitioners has been improved and the process of risk assessment for delayed cases improved.

Cafcass chief executive Anthony Douglas said: "We are determined to continue driving up practice standards."

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