CYP Now - Interview: Time to boost staff morale - Baroness Pitkeathley, chair of Cafcass

How do you revitalise an organisation whose morale and reputation have been at rock bottom after a scathing report by MPs, criticism in the press and a row between the Lord Chancellor and a former board member? This question occupies Baroness Pitkeathley, who this year accepted a job many might see as a poisoned chalice - chairing the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, known as Cafcass.

Her answer has been to recruit a board of legal and childcare specialists who she thinks will command respect, and to embark on a programme of communication with staff and the agencies Cafcass works with.

She will also be announcing the appointment of a new chief executive shortly and is confident that she will negotiate a good increase in the organisation's budget from the Department for Education and Skills, which stood at 95m in 2003/4. Shortage of money is cited as part of the recent crisis.

"It's easy for troubles on a board to set the atmosphere in an organisation, and the richness of the new board and the respect in which they are held sends a new signal," says Pitkeathley, a Labour peer since 1997. "So I hope many will feel a corner has been turned.

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