To approve and endorse the Corporate Parenting strategy.

the Corporate Parenting strategy and action plan at appendix A, as amended, are approved.

The Children and Social Work Act 2017 has recently been given Royal Assent and defines for the first time in law the expectations of councils in relation to their corporate parenting responsibilities. To be able to evidence the council’s commitment and action in relation to these responsibilities it is necessary to have a strategy.

Corporate parenting is a responsibility of all elected members and officers within the council as well as statutory partners. A strategy enables the council and its partners to be clear about priorities, what needs to be done and by who if change is to be achieved. To be effective the strategy needs to be understood and owned by all councillors.

The council does not adopt a Corporate Parenting strategy. This would make it difficult to evidence the council’s commitment to corporate parenting or to define what difference it was aiming to achieve and to evaluate what difference it had made in improving outcomes for looked after children and care leavers.