Tell us what's happening. We'll show you where your case falls outside CAFCASS's own rules.
Describe your situation and we'll point out, free, where it appears to breach the standards CAFCASS officers are required to follow. No jargon. No cost. Just clarity, from the first question to after the final hearing.
Most parents find us in the middle of the storm. It doesn't matter which stage you're at. The help starts from exactly where you're standing.
How it works
Three steps. No cost. No catch.
You don't upload a document into a void. You have a conversation, and it answers you.
1
Tell us what's happening
In your own words. We answer your worry first, before anything else.
2
We check it against the rules
JUNO measures your report against the standards CAFCASS officers must follow.
3
You get it in plain English
Every point where the report appears to fall short, and what you can do next.
Meet JUNO
The engine that reads your report.
JUNO is the intelligence behind The King Project. It knows every standard a CAFCASS officer is required to follow, checks your report against them, and explains what it finds in plain English. Here's how a first conversation feels.
The King Project
I got a safeguarding letter and now I only see my daughter two hours a week. I don't understand why.
That's frightening, and you're not alone in it. A safeguarding letter is an early step, not the final word, and it can be challenged. Can I ask: has a Section 7 report been ordered yet?
Yes, last week.
Good, that's exactly what we can help with. When you share it, I'll show you where it appears to fall outside CAFCASS's own standards, point by point.
Free legal help most parents never claim
Were you controlled? Manipulated? Made to feel like nothing?
That's abuse. It doesn't have to be a raised hand. Being controlled, belittled, cut off from your kids, your money or your friends, made to feel worthless or like everything was your fault. The law recognises all of it as domestic abuse, and it can entitle you to free legal aid. Most victims never claim it. Men almost never do, because nobody ever told them it counted. Whoever you are, it counts, and we'll help you prove it.
1
We help you see it
Name what's happened to you against what the law recognises as abuse, including coercive and emotional control.
2
We point you to assessment
Connect you to the right route to have it formally assessed, the step that can unlock funding.
3
You apply for legal aid
With that in hand, we show you how to apply for the free legal help you may be entitled to.
Everything on this site is backed by their own letters.
We asked CAFCASS the questions they don't publish answers to. The replies, in writing, are laid out side by side in the Evidence Room.
That is the independent Ombudsman parents are told to escalate to: one complaint about CAFCASS fully upheld, out of 1,888 received since 2020. And every figure on this page arrived the same way, from the public bodies themselves, in writing, under the Freedom of Information Act. CAFCASS. Ofsted. The Ombudsman. The National Audit Office. The Ministry of Justice. The Children's Commissioner. Nothing here is our opinion. It's their own letters, laid side by side.
Ten official written replies, June to August 2026 · full register at the foot of this page
What they told us, in their own words
Eight figures. Eight admissions. Every one from a dated, referenced letter.
Exhibit A
1 to 3%
Complaints fully upheld, every year, five years running.
"We have therefore provided data on the number of complaints recorded in each of the years requested."
CAF 26‑45850 · 18 Jun 2026
Exhibit B
91
Complaints fully upheld across five years, out of 8,474 received.
Sum of CAFCASS's own year-by-year "fully upheld" figures, 2021/22 to 2025/26.
CAF 26‑45850 · 18 Jun 2026
Exhibit C
0
Formal sanctions issued as a result of those 91 upheld complaints.
"The number of those disciplinary processes that ended in a formal sanction... Nil."
CAF 26‑46376 · 14 Jul 2026
Exhibit D
0
Staff dismissed following an upheld complaint, in five years.
"The number of staff dismissed following an upheld complaint... Nil."
CAF 26‑46376 · 14 Jul 2026
Exhibit E
Not held
Whether a wrongly written report was ever corrected for the court.
"We are unable to provide the requested information as it is not recorded by Cafcass."
CAF 26‑46376 · 14 Jul 2026
Exhibit G
1 in 1,888
Complaints about CAFCASS upheld by the independent Ombudsman since 2020.
One upheld, out of 1,888 complaints received by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
PHSO · FOI reply · 2026
Exhibit H
None
Framework Ofsted holds for assessing the independence of evidence before the family court.
Ofsted confirmed it holds no framework for assessing the independence of family court evidence.
Ofsted · FOI reply · 2026
Exhibit F
<5
The threshold so low across five years that CAFCASS had to merge the figures to avoid identifying individual staff.
"Because of the low number of responses which meet your criteria... we have aggregated the information."
CAF 26‑46376 · 14 Jul 2026
The same job, two different professions
A nurse and a CAFCASS officer both hold a public trust. Nurses also work with layers of checks around them: colleagues, managers and their employer catch most problems long before anything reaches the regulator, so far fewer complaints ever start. Even with that in mind, here is one year side by side.
CAFCASS received 1,230 complaints in 2023 to 2024.
Here is what came of them, next to what the same number of complaints about nurses would have led to, at the nursing regulator's own rate.
Ended in a formal sanction
CAFCASS0
Nursing104
Removed from the job
CAFCASS0
Nursing46
CAFCASS: 1,230 complaints in 2023/24, with no formal sanctions and no dismissals in the five years to 2026 (FOI replies CAF 26-45850 and CAF 26-46376). Nursing: 5,774 new concerns, 488 sanctions and 214 struck off in 2023 to 2024 (Nursing and Midwifery Council, Annual Fitness to Practise Report), scaled to 1,230 complaints and rounded.
We asked every body around them
Oversight, audit and inspection bodies, one written question at a time. Read together, their answers describe the same gap, each in its own words.
Exhibit I
Never asked
Whether any body has ever proposed that Ofsted assess the independence or quality of family court evidence.
Ofsted has never received such a proposal from CAFCASS, the Ministry of Justice, the Department for Education, or any other body.
Ofsted follow-up · CAS-515709-MHH7WP · 26 August 2026
Exhibit J
One route
Inspection routes into CAFCASS across the entire system.
HM Inspectorate of Probation has no role in CAFCASS oversight. Inspection is Ofsted's responsibility alone. The one route that exists holds no framework for this, and was never asked to build one.
Ministry of Justice · 260728005 · 26 August 2026
Exhibit K
Never
Formal recommendations the Children's Commissioner has made about CAFCASS practice or accountability.
No formal recommendation, submission or representation concerning CAFCASS practice or accountability, in the Office's history.
Children's Commissioner for England · FOI2621 · 25 August 2026
Exhibit L
72,000+
Applications the Legal Aid Agency would have to review by hand to say how many parents face a represented opponent alone.
Nothing at all is recorded about the opposing, privately funded party in private law children cases. Nobody holds a national picture of represented against unrepresented parents.
MoJ / Legal Aid Agency · 260728018 · 24 August 2026
Exhibit M
43%
Of CAFCASS's 1,659 formal complaints in 2025/26 themed report content, report writing or factual error.
A further 1,314 concerns the same year never entered the formal complaints process at all, handled instead by local teams, uncounted.
CAFCASS · CAF 26-46784 · 24 August 2026
Exhibit N
4,000+
Children in family court cases that have been running for more than 100 weeks.
47,662 cases outstanding at December 2024. CAFCASS private law involvement is set to roughly triple, with around 200 advisers not yet in post.
National Audit Office · FOI-1945 · and NAO report, May 2025
The pattern across every reply
CAFCASS cannot confirm a single wrong report has ever been corrected, and applied zero formal sanctions from 91 upheld complaints in five years.
The Ombudsman has fully upheld one complaint out of 1,888 since 2020.
Ofsted, the only inspector CAFCASS has, holds no framework for assessing the independence of family court evidence, and has never been asked by anyone to build one.
The Ministry of Justice confirms no other inspection route exists.
The Children's Commissioner has never made a formal representation about CAFCASS practice or accountability.
The Legal Aid Agency does not track, in any form, how many parents face a represented opponent while unrepresented themselves.
What our own measuring is finding
JUNO checks every report against CAFCASS's own published standards. These are the patterns in the reports we have measured so far. It is a small number of reports, too few to generalise from, and we publish it so the method can be checked as the numbers grow.
Finding 01
85%
Of every failure found, 85% pointed against the same parent. The one the report recommended against.
Failures that fall one way are not sloppiness. Sloppiness falls both ways.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
Finding 02
46%
Nearly half of all failures scored Critical, the most serious grade on the scale.
Critical means the failure is capable of changing the outcome of the case.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
Finding 03
100%
Every report so far dropped a parent's protective factors between the body of the report and the recommendation.
The good things about a parent are recorded, then quietly vanish before the conclusion.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
Finding 04
100%
Every report so far tested one parent's claims while taking the other parent's on trust.
One family, two evidential standards, inside a single document.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
Finding 05
3 in 4
Reports that stated untested allegations as established fact.
An allegation written down as fact reads as fact to a court that never sees the method.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
Finding 06
3 in 4
Reports that left questions the court had specifically directed to be answered, unanswered.
The court asked. The report did not answer. The court relied on it anyway.
JUNO cross-case analysis · reports measured to date
The evidence room is still growing
Every request below is real, dated, and sent under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. This tracker updates as replies land.
13
Requests sent
9
Answered in full
4
Awaiting reply
9
Independent bodies asked
CAFCASS: complaints received & upheld rateAnswered
CAFCASS: consequences for staffAnswered
CAFCASS: the public's own questionsAnswered
CAFCASS: payouts & performance measuresDrafted
Ministry of Justice: court outcomesSent
MoJ / Legal Aid Agency: representation gapAnswered
Social Work England: officer referralsSent
Ofsted: inspection findingsAnswered
Children's Commissioner for EnglandAnswered
Information Commissioner's OfficeSent
Parliamentary & Health Service OmbudsmanAnswered
National Audit OfficeAnswered
HM Inspectorate of ProbationAnswered
Family Justice CouncilSent
Been let down by a report?
The data is one side of this. Your case is the other. Tell us what happened, free, and we'll show you where it appears to fall outside CAFCASS's own standards.
Everything on this page was done by volunteers, for free, in a matter of months. It is the clearest way we know to show what we would do with proper funding.
10
written answers from six public bodies, under the Freedom of Information Act
15
free guides and template letters for parents facing a CAFCASS report
500+
people came forward within days to take part in our documentary
Nearly 1 million
views of our Facebook posts in three months
The record, newest first
October 2026
A free member pack
Eight plain-English guides and seven template letters: the dates check, the court directions checklist, how to record your interview, how to complain to CAFCASS step by step, and more. Free to every member of our group.
September 2026
Grieving the Living announced
A six-part documentary on CAFCASS and the family courts, now in development. The announcement was viewed 222,547 times, and more than 500 parents and adults who grew up through the system came forward.
September 2026
Governance in place
Constitution adopted on the Charity Commission's Foundation model. Safeguarding policy adopted. Application to register as a charitable incorporated organisation submitted.
June to August 2026
Ten answers on the record
Written replies from CAFCASS, the Ombudsman, Ofsted, the National Audit Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Children's Commissioner. Figures CAFCASS does not publish, now public. See the evidence.
July and August 2026
Data protection first
Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ZC188843), and a data protection impact assessment adopted for every document a parent sends us.
July to September 2026
The method in action
Our home town's bin crisis. 185 legal notices served by residents, and a council that started answering. The full story is below.
The method in action: our home town
This isn't our main work. Thanet is where we live. When the council stopped collecting bins and stopped answering residents, we used the same method we use on CAFCASS: find the rule the institution is bound by, give ordinary people a simple way to use it, and let the evidence do the talking.
The council answered within a month.
185
legal notices served on the council by residents
4 hours
from the first notice being served to the street being cleared
300,000+
views on our own channels alone, broadcast audiences on top
3
newsrooms covering the story
ITV Meridian filming in Ramsgate, July 2026Residents' notices, hand delivered after the council's inbox stopped accepting them
How it happened
April to July
A district ignored
Collections changed for 27,000 households. Almost 4,000 calls about missed collections in three months. Apologies, and nothing else.
24 July
One notice
Our founder served the council a legal notice under section 82 of the Environmental Protection Act 1990. A crew cleared the street within four hours. The council's own lawyers later confirmed a formal inspection under the statutory Code of Practice, regrading, and supervisor monitoring.
5 August
An open letter
A published letter to the Leader of the council asked for one thing: a district-wide recovery plan, with dates and named accountability. No plan was published. No reply ever came.
14 August
The tool
We built and launched a free self-serve tool. Any resident could generate their own personalised legal notice in about two minutes and have it served on the council for them. No solicitor, no cost.
20 August
Hand delivery
When the council's inbox began bouncing the notices, the first thirty-five were printed and delivered by hand, over the counter, with proof of delivery. Isle of Thanet News reported it two days later.
September
185 notices
Residents across Ramsgate, Margate, Cliftonville, Broadstairs, Westgate, Birchington and Minster served their own notices, and the council began replying to each one to confirm the waste had been cleared. Nobody wanted court. Everybody wanted the service fixed.
"After completing your form we had our bins emptied and the road sweeper up the road. The first time I have seen a road sweeper since about 2019!"
A Thanet resident, on our Facebook page
The coverage
ITV Meridian
Filmed the campaign on the street, July 2026
KMTV
Kent's TV channel, interview and report, July 2026
Isle of Thanet News
Two reports, 22 and 24 August 2026
The claim, stated carefully
We believe this is the first organised, self-serve mass legal action of its kind against a UK council.
We can find no record of anything comparable: an automated, free tool letting ordinary residents generate and serve their own statutory notices, at scale, on one authority. For context, the best-known organised resident group action against a UK council, the Corby litigation, involved eighteen families. If anyone knows of anything closer, we would genuinely like to hear about it.
Why this matters for family courts
The bins were a failure everyone could see. In one month the method produced a formal response from the council, regional television and press coverage, and a district acting together.
In the family courts the failure is hidden, inside reports most people never see checked. That is where the same method is now pointed. The evidence so far is in the Evidence Room. For funding, partnership or press enquiries: support this work or email info@thekingproject.co.uk
About us
Every report has rules. We check they were followed.
CAFCASS reports shape where children live and who they get to see. Every report is meant to follow CAFCASS's own published standards. We check that it does, free, for any parent who asks, and we publish the pattern.
Why we exist
The only body that inspects CAFCASS has confirmed in writing that it has no framework for assessing the independence of the evidence CAFCASS gives the family court, and that nobody has ever asked it to build one. That body is Ofsted. CAFCASS itself does not record whether a wrong report is ever corrected for the court.
So nobody checks. We do. One report at a time for the parent who needs it, and across every report we measure, for a national picture nobody has had before.
Our founder
Steven Keeley founded The King Project in 2026. He is a father who has seen the family court system from the inside, and a former RMT union representative.
As a rep, he learned that rules only protect people when someone checks they are being followed, and that the person on their own across the table rarely has the paperwork to prove it. The King Project is built to give parents that paperwork.
Steven works tirelessly on The King Project, for no profit whatsoever.
How we're run
Charitable purposes
An unincorporated association with charitable purposes, under a constitution based on the Charity Commission's Foundation model, adopted 23 September 2026.
A board of trustees
Governed by a board of three trustees, responsible together for our money, our policies and our decisions.
Charity registration
We have applied to the Charity Commission to register as a charitable incorporated organisation. Until that is confirmed, we are not a registered charity.
Our money
Funds are received and held for us by our fiscal host, The Social Change Nest CIC, through Open Collective, where every payment in and out is shown publicly.
Data protection
Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, ZC188843, with a data protection impact assessment adopted 27 August 2026.
Safeguarding
A safeguarding policy adopted 23 September 2026, with a named Designated Safeguarding Lead and a deputy.
Meet JUNO
JUNO is the analysis engine behind The King Project. It is named after the Roman goddess who protected children and families. JUNO reads a report against the standards its author was bound by and lists every point where it appears to fall short. Every finding is checked by a person before it reaches a parent.
What we are, and what we are not
We are not solicitors and we do not give legal advice. We measure reports against published standards and hand the result to the parent and their legal adviser. We aim our criticism at the system, never at a named individual, and we never publish anything that could identify a child.
Free for every parent. Here's how that's paid for.
Parents never pay us a penny, and they never will. The work is funded by people and organisations who want family court reports checked against the rules.
What funding pays for
Parents seen before their hearing
Measuring a report properly takes time. Funding means more parents get their analysis before the hearing, not after it.
The national picture
Every report we measure adds to an anonymised record of how often reports depart from their own rules. Funding lets us publish it.
Questions in writing
Our Freedom of Information work puts figures on the record that public bodies do not publish. Funding keeps the questions going.
Free guides for every parent
Plain-English guides and template letters, kept up to date as the rules change, free to anyone who needs them.
Demand is already ahead of us. When we asked people to come forward for our documentary, more than 500 did within days. Funding is how we meet it.
For trusts, foundations and partners
We would be glad to talk. On request we can send:
our constitution
our safeguarding policy
our data protection policy and data protection impact assessment
our policy on funding we will not accept
our Freedom of Information evidence base, with every source reply
Gifts are received and held for us by our fiscal host, The Social Change Nest CIC, through Open Collective.
Monthly gifts need a free Open Collective account. One-off gifts do not.
Open Collective shows contributors' names publicly. You can choose to give incognito.
Card payments carry a small processing fee, and our fiscal host takes a small percentage for hosting. Open Collective may suggest an optional tip to the platform. You can set it to zero.
We are not a registered charity, so we cannot claim Gift Aid.
Individual giving opens soon. Our Open Collective page is being set up with our fiscal host, The Social Change Nest CIC. Until it opens, please email info@thekingproject.co.uk if you would like to help.
Money we will not take
Our findings only matter if nobody can say they were paid for. We take nothing from CAFCASS or the bodies we measure, nothing from anyone with a stake in a case we analyse, and nothing with conditions on what we find or publish. Read the full policy.
Other ways to help
Join our free group at facebook.com/groups/thekingproject. Share our posts. If a report has let your family down, tell us about it. Every report we measure makes the national picture clearer.
How we handle what you send us
Policies & data protection
Our privacy promise
Everything you send us is confidential. Your documents are used for one purpose only: analysing the report in your case against the standards its author was bound by. The analysis goes to you, and to your legal adviser if you choose, and nowhere else. It is never filed with the court, never published, and never shared with anyone outside that process.
We are ICO registered (ZC188843). Our analysis system runs in an isolated environment, is never used to train any AI model, and every finding is checked by a person before it reaches you. Your documents are not kept longer than the work requires, and you can ask us at any time what we hold and to have it deleted.
The legal basis for sending us your documents
Under rule 12.75(1)(a) of the Family Procedure Rules 2010, a party to children proceedings may share information about those proceedings with another person where necessary to obtain, by confidential discussion, support, advice or assistance in the conduct of the proceedings. That is the basis on which you send us your documents, and our use of them stays within that purpose, consistent with Practice Direction 12G: analysis delivered to you and your legal adviser only.
Under UK GDPR, we process your material on the basis of your consent, given at intake before you send anything, including your explicit consent for the sensitive categories of information these documents contain.
What happens to your documents, step by step
You send your documents by email to info@thekingproject.co.uk with your case background. This privacy notice is provided before or at the point of sending.
Your documents are analysed in an isolated environment. No other cases, correspondence or outside material enters it. The engine reads your documents cold.
Every output is reviewed by a named person before anything is delivered. No finding leaves us unchecked.
Your Framework Analysis goes to you and, if you choose, your legal adviser. Professionals are referred to by role, not name.
Your analysis is not filed with the court, not published, and not shared with any third party. Your documents are deleted from our storage once the work is complete.
The national dataset
We keep aggregate, non-identifying pattern data only: counts of finding types and the direction they fall. No names, no case numbers, no locations, no dates and no identifying details of any kind enter that dataset. It exists so that, for the first time, there is a national picture of how often these reports depart from their own rules.
Systems and safeguards
Document analysis runs on a commercial AI platform under terms which mean your content is never used to train any model, inputs and outputs are automatically deleted after seven days, and a formal data processing agreement applies. The provider holds SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and ISO 42001 certifications. Our email runs on our own domain with access limited to named individuals.
Your rights
You can ask at any time what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted, by emailing info@thekingproject.co.uk. Deletion requests are honoured except where a minimal record must be kept for legal or accountability reasons. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, tell us first, and you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
What we are, and what we are not
The King Project is a not-for-profit with charitable purposes. We have applied to the Charity Commission to register as a charitable incorporated organisation. Until that is confirmed, we are not a registered charity. We are not solicitors and we do not give legal advice. What you receive is an analysis measuring the report in your case against published standards, for you and your legal adviser to use as you see fit.
Safeguarding
We adopted a safeguarding policy on 23 September 2026, with a named Designated Safeguarding Lead and a deputy. Everything you send us stays confidential, with one exception: if what we learn tells us a child or an adult is at risk of serious harm, we will act to protect them, and that can mean contacting the police or children's services. If anyone is in immediate danger, call 999.
Funding we will not accept
We measure the quality of family court reports and publish what we find. That only has value if nobody can say our findings were paid for. We take money from people who want the work done. We do not take it from anyone who could gain from what we find, or who wants a say in it.
We will not accept money from:
CAFCASS and CAFCASS Cymru; Ofsted, HMCTS and the Ministry of Justice for work on the subject of our findings; and any independent social worker, expert witness or psychologist who writes reports for the family court, or their firm.
Anyone with a stake in a case: a party to live family proceedings or anyone giving on their behalf, anyone asking for help with their own case in return for a gift, or anyone who has been or is likely to be the subject of our analysis.
Anyone attaching conditions: advance sight of findings, a say in what we publish or when, particular conclusions, access to unpublished data, or any private benefit in return.
Political parties, groups whose message blames a class of parents, and anyone who has harassed named professionals or identified a child in family proceedings.
Money we cannot trace, including anonymous gifts above £500.
Decided case by case: law firms and legal services businesses, mediation and online separation services, legal technology firms and local council community grants, only with no link to any case we have analysed, no conditions, and agreement to be named in our funder list. The trustees decide and record why, and any trustee with an interest leaves the room.
How we decide: every gift over £500 goes to the trustees before we accept it. Our founder takes no part in any decision about a gift or expense that benefits him. We keep a written record of each gift accepted or refused, return any gift later found to breach this policy, and publish a list of our funders each year. While we are funded through The Social Change Nest CIC, the Nest's own rules on gifts also apply.
Complaints and corrections
If you are unhappy with anything we have done, email info@thekingproject.co.uk with "Complaint" in the subject line and we will reply. If you spot a figure on this site that is wrong, tell us. We will check it against the source, correct it, and note the change.
Data Protection Impact Assessment adopted 27 August 2026 · next review 27 February 2027 · ICO registration ZC188843, registered 3 July 2026
