To review the Adoption and Fostering services performance report and approve related documents.

Deferred from 24 September 2020.

The cabinet member children and families introduced the item. She noted that it was national adoption week and echoed the points made at a national level encouraging potential adopters to come forward.

The head of looked after children highlighted the key points of the annual reports:

·        the reports covered work in 2019/20;

·        the transition to working as part of ACE had gone smoothly;

·        development of the early permanency hub had been effective;

·        slight increase in number of children being placed in foster to adopt placements;

·        priorities for the adoption service in 20/21 were to continue the focus on pre-birth planning and improve the timeliness of children being placed for adoption;

·        eliminating the backlog in producing life story books and later life letters had also been identified as a priority and this had already been achieved;

·        there was an increase in the number of children placed with in house foster carers against a backdrop of a small reduction in the number of foster carers;

·        increased number of children left care through a special guardianship order;

·        the training offer to foster carers had been improved and the use of a suite of online training had been valuable during the coronavirus epidemic;

·        priorities for the fostering service in 20/21 were to focus on increasing the number of carers and the number of placements in house across all types of foster care, to continue to increase the number of children long term matched with their foster  carers and to increase the number of children leaving care through special guardianship orders.

In discussion of the report cabinet members noted that:

·        The coronavirus epidemic had caused some difficulties but overall these had been managed well, some foster carers had not been able to take children as they were isolating or shielding which caused some pressure;

·        Information would be provided after the meeting on the latest numbers of carers by type and the targets for 2020/21;

·        The impact of the approach to reducing numbers of looked after children was showing results;

·        The turnover of staff had been higher than usual in 2019/20 but most of the staff who had left had been promoted or left for other positive reasons, all but one post was now filled permanently;

·        New carers had a dedicated family support worker who provided continuity even if there was a turnover in social workers, children also had their own social worker separate from the workers supporting the carers;

·        A new Facebook site had been in place since January 2020 which had attracted significant attention and was more dynamic than the council website but the translation of enquiries into applications was currently very low, feedback from applications was being considered to see what could be learned to improve conversion rates;

·        It was a struggle to recruit carers from BAME or mixed backgrounds;

·        The HIPPS service had a small number of carers able to foster multiple children but it had been difficult to replace those that had left, an offer of additional support and payments to all foster carers and this had generated some interest;

·        Targets for numbers of new adopters related to timescales for completion of the objectives, these targets were ambitious but achievable and would be reviewed as ACE developed;

·        The assistant director safeguarding and family support was currently chair of the ACE board and reported that she was learning about the challenges experienced by the other councils involved and that there was a common desire to ensure children were matched and moved on as swiftly as possible;

·        The services sought feedback from adopters and looked to learn from points raised;

·        A briefing was to be arranged for all councillors to learn about the services and process of adoption.

Group leaders and representatives were invited to give the views of their group. There was support for the efforts of foster carers and adopters and it was noted that:

·        There had originally been concerns that joining ACE would impact on the county’s previously good performance as an agency but the potential benefits were understood and no downsides had been noted to date;

·        The use of special guardianship orders and kinship carers was encouraged;

·        There was concern about the low conversion rate from enquiries and feedback on the clunkiness of the process;

·        It was important that allowances were reviewed to compete with independent agencies and encourage prospective carers and adopters to come forward.

The chair of the children and young people scrutiny committee explained that the committee had raised many of the same questions as had been discussed during the meeting and that it was a shame that the review of allowances had been delayed from the timescale previously shared with the committee. It was positive that the backlog in life story books had been addressed and important that changes in working practices ensured the situation did not arise again.

The recommendations were put to cabinet members as set out in the report. The cabinet member commissioning, procurement and assets joined the meeting during consideration of the item and having not heard the full debate did not vote on the recommendations.

It was agreed that:

(a)           the performance of the adoption service as outlined at appendix A to this report be reviewed, any risks to achievement of objectives noted and relevant mitigating actions approved; and

(b)          the performance of the fostering service as outlined at appendix B to this report be reviewed, any risks to achievement of objectives noted and relevant mitigating actions approved.

Cllr Hardwick left the meeting at 15:34