1. Critique of the NAPO ‘Anti-sexism’ Policy
Introduction
The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) is a major trade union and professional body of probation officers and Court Welfare Officers (CWOs).
The role of Court Welfare Officers in disputed children’s cases after separation and divorce is very significant, as it is they who produce ‘impartial’ reports for the court in Section 8 cases under the Children Act 1989 i.e. for contested residence and contact cases. The reports often contain a recommendation, even though the welfare officer’s role is essentially to collect information about each side of the case, and not to act as a judge, in what is a very important and sensitive area of the parties’ lives. It is unusual for a judge to go against a recommendation made in such a report.
Court Welfare Officers are indirectly employed by the public to provide a service to the parties and to the courts, and therefore fall within the sex equality provisions of SIII of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 (SDA75).
NAPO policy
In NAPO’s policy document Equal Rights / Anti-sexism of September 1996 [2] we find, in the section on ‘Policy Objectives and Targets for the Family Court System’, the following :
a) To develop and promote policies and strategies which strengthen and enhance the ability of women to make and carry out choices within separating families.
b) To develop and implement policies and strategies which challenge the experience of oppression of women in separating families.
c) To support the rights of lesbians as mothers and carers.
d) To develop policies and strategies which challenge the discrimination against women in contested residence and contact decisions.
…
e) To develop and promote training strategies which strengthen the anti-discriminatory perspective of family court work.
A critique of the policy
The bias in welfare reports is well documented [1], but what is not so well known is the official approval given to this.
The courts do not receive accurate and balanced information on which to base a judgement which is meant to be in the children’s best interests, so the objective needs of children in this are almost entirely overlooked, and children are quite simply treated as the property of the mother.
The NAPO policy describes the "experience of oppression of women in separating families" and the "discrimination against women in contested residence and contact decisions", and nowhere in the 15 pages of the policy is the interests of fathers and their children mentioned even once.
Part I Section 1(1) of the Children Act 1989 in stating that "the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration" requires the children’s interests to be given priority. The NAPO policy therefore contravenes the spirit and letter of the law under which CWOs operate and for which reports are produced.
Lack of public knowledge of this policy
In correspondence with The Cheltenham Group [3], NAPO has stated that "the publication [i.e. containing the policy] is a members’ document and therefore is not available for sale or for wide circulation to non-members".
This implies that NAPO members, who come into the homes of the public and very significantly order and re-order the lives of the public, are operating under a policy which, by their own statement, is not to become widely known to the public i.e. it is to be a concealed policy.
But the public are entitled, and have every right, to know what policies are applied by Court Welfare Officers, as this determines the most basic rights over one’s children, home and finances etc. in matrimonial cases.
Conclusions
There are two aspects of the NAPO policy in contested children’s issues which we wish to have addressed :
1) the damaging effect of such a policy on the lives of fathers and their children;
2) the clear flouting of the provisions of the Children Act 1989.
The Children Act 1989 concerns itself with the principle that "the child’s welfare shall be the court’s paramount consideration" (Part I Section 1(1) of the Act). This principle is used to deny fathers reasonable rights. But further than this, a judge and court must have objective, accurate and balanced information on which to base a decision if this principle is to be applied in practice. However, it cannot be possible for any judge or court determining an issue about children under the Children Act 1989, and relying on a welfare report produced by a NAPO member who applies the policy, to know that this is the case. The NAPO policy is clearly capable of, and we believe does, infringe the Children Act principle.
Based on the evidence, presented below, of the responses to our submissions to the responsible authorities, there appears to be no way of remedying this situation.
References
The Emperor’s New Clothes : Divorce Process and Consequence, The Cheltenham Group, October 1996, ISBN 1 900080 04 4.
Equal Rights / Anti-sexism, National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO), 4 Chivalry Road, London, SW11 1HT, September 1996.
Letter, from Gaenor Kyffin of NAPO Administration, 4 Chivalry Road, London SW11 1HT, 23 April 1997.
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