Matters Arising
To discuss any matters arising.
Minutes:
A brief update was given on joint working under the North London Fostering and Adoption Consortium which was progressing well including the running of an advertising campaign to recruit new foster carers. Boroughs in the consortium were now also sharing foster carers which Haringey in particular was benefiting from in reducing the need to go to the external market.
The Committee were updated on a separate but parallel work stream under the North London Strategic Alliance partnership, membership of which included the majority of boroughs in the area. This work was focussed on the category management of children services costs including benchmarking fostering and residential placement costs across the piece with a view to informing future collective negotiations on price. To this end, boroughs in the Alliance had each contributed to funding a procurement specialist to lead on this work over a two year period. The post would be hosted by Haringey with an interim appointed until permanent recruitment was possible. Feedback on this work would be provided to the Committee in due course.
It was agreed that the analysis of outcomes from fostering week activities would be circulated to Committee members.