Issue - meetings

Consideration was given to the Regional Adoption Agency (RAA) 2017/18 Annual Report which was presented by the Head of Service Looked After Children and Care Leavers. The Interim Director of Children’s Social Care and Early Help was also in attendance to present the information and to address the enquiries of the Committee.

It was reported that a year had elapsed since changes in delivering Adoption Services had been introduced. In Oldham, children and young people remained the responsibility of the Council, but members of staff had been seconded to Bolton Council, the host Council for the RAA, to deliver services concerning care planning, adoptive/foster parent recruitment. The Adoption Leadership Board (i.e.: the national board with the responsibility to improve performance of the adoption system in England) had introduced changes in the Adoption Services since 2008 to accelerate the process of finding a placement for children as well as recruiting adoptive families. It was reported that, nationally, the shortage of adopters had an impact on adoption performance. However, in 2017/18 Oldham had done well, outperforming England average and statistical neighbours with regard to the length of time from the point when children came into care to the time when they were placed with the adoptive families (i.e.: A1 indicator - Child Entering Care Starting Adoption Placement).

A2 indicator (i.e.: Placement Order to Matching), showed that there had been improvement compared to the previous year and Oldham was still performing better than national average and statistical neighbours, although it had missed the target. It was explained that the demographic in Oldham had to be considered when reading these statistics as there were a high number of children considered “hard to place” due to age, ethnicity, health needs and/or being part of a sibling group.

With regard to recruitment of adoptive families and adoption support, Elected Members were informed that, through the RAA, Oldham had been able to merge resources and to invest in a wider and sustained recruiting campaign; as a result, a number of adopters had come forward. It had also been possible to access increased support for adoptive families and members of staff and adopters had been able to access more training and development courses. With the RAA, Oldham could host events at no cost and place children without paying an interagency fee. It was reported that 50% of children had been placed within local authorities which were part of the RAA.

Members sought and received clarification / commented on the following points:

-       Agency Decision Maker – It was explained that this was a role prescribed by the legislation for a senior manager within the organisation. In Oldham, the Interim Director of Children’s Services was invested with this role.

-       Adoption Leadership Board Scorecard – It was explained that this was a Government’s measure on a three-year period; this specific level of detail had been required for the purpose of data analysis. In order to provide today’s data, year to date figures had been extracted from the system.

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