Agenda item

(To receive a report from Yvonne Shearwood, Children's Services Manager: Regulated (South and Adoption), which informs the Panel of the work of the Adoption Service in accordance with the requirements of the Care Standards National Minimum Standards 2003, 2011 and 2014 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002)

Consideration was given to a report which informed the Corporate Parenting Panel about the work of the Adoption Service in accordance with the requirements of the Care Standards National Minimum Standards 2003, 2011, 2014 and the Adoption and Children Act 2002.  The National Minimum Standards, together with the Adoption Regulations, for the basis of the regulatory framework under the Care Standards Act 2000 for the conduct of Adoption Agencies and Adoption Support Agencies.

Under the requirements of the National Standards, members, in their role as Corporate Parents, should be informed on a regular basis about the activity of the Adoption Service.

It was reported that the National Minimum Standards for the Adoption Service were broken down into 31 standards.  Standard 17 dealt with the monitoring and controlling and required the Executive Councillor to satisfy themselves that the Adoption Agency was effective and achieved good outcomes for children.  There was a statutory requirement to report this information to the Panel.

The Interim Director of Children's Services provided the panel with an update on the progress with forming a regional adoption agency (RAA).  The DFE continued to support proposed RAA's and it was noted that the D2N2 (Nottinghamshire, Nottingham City, Derbyshire and Derby City) had gone live in April 2019 and the indication was that it was working well.  Lincolnshire, Rutland, Leicester City and Leicestershire had become L3R and were developing partnership arrangements, as part of this a new role would be created, with a hub and spoke model.  It was reported that there was a meeting on 31 January 2020 to finalise the details.  Operationally, services had been realigned as a region including work on templates and training that was delivered, and some benefits were starting to be realised.  It was also noted that discussions were taking place with North Lincolnshire Council who were interested in being part of this model (It was noted that North Lincolnshire was also rated as an outstanding adoption service).

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         In terms of the partnership that Lincolnshire was a part of, it was queried whether it would only get one assessment from government, and so was it more likely that Lincolnshire rating would go down rather than retaining the outstanding rating.  It was confirmed that Lincolnshire would be inspected as a Regional Adoption Agency, and that there was a clause being written into the partnership that meant it could be dissolved due to poor performance of other partners.  However, the authority would need to be part of a RAA in some form.

·         There were concerns about whether the good work done in Lincolnshire could be affected by being in a RAA.  The Panel was advised that one authority would need to be the lead authority and host authority, and Lincolnshire would put itself forward for this role.

·         It was commented that it was positive that this would help other authorities.  It was also noted that it would also provide a bigger pool of people for placements.

·         It was noted that adoption orders had increased by 50% from the previous year, and the number of Special Guardianship Orders had decreased.

RESOLVED

            That the Corporate Parenting Panel endorse the Adoption Service Six Month Review.