Issue - meetings

Adoption Update

Meeting: 19/03/2012 - Corporate Parenting Advisory Committee (Item 156)

Adoption Update

To receive an update from the Assistant Director for Children and  Families on Adoption and Permanency Activity. To Follow

Minutes:

 The  committee received a verbal update from the  Deputy Director for Children and Families about  Adoption  and the new  action plan  from government to  speed up and instigate more use of  the adoption process.  The government  currently  used data to rank boroughs performance in the speed and number of adoptions being made.   In 2011 Haringey  was  ranked 123 out of 152  boroughs  with an average of 63% of adoptions being made within 12 months  of the  decision to adopt over the previous 3 years.  The committee noted that this figure had already  improved and the council were  currently performing at 75% against the national average of 74%.

 

 The committee were informed that there would be an introduction of  performance thresholds, set to monitor  the overall  time of the journey through the adoption process.

 

 All local authorities would be receiving a performance scorecard  to help profile and track progress. The committee were provided with an example of its likely content and would be provided with the  final version  of the score card  when issued by government.

 

The chair  commented on the need for the service  to monitor  any counter  effects of the  action plan  such as:  a lower  number of    children being placed  in the adoption process  because a placement may not be  found within the set thresholds or  if there  is an increase in placement breakdowns  through the  process being made shorter.  Officers agreed that it would be important to  prioritise  considering all the adoption  case specifics rather than meeting targets.

 

 The committee noted that the court will in future ratify the care plans rather  than the adoption review panel.  It was felt  that the Adoption panel should continue these  quality assurance measures  with updates on cases  being considered at their meetings  so that  they can continue to provide  independent analysis  on cases going forward.

 

 The committee  continued to consider  information on the number of children and their age range currently progressing through the adoption process. It was noted that once the family was identified that  the local authority would need to await the Court placement order before placing the child with the family. The family would then  need to place the adoption order.

 

RESOLVED

 

That the adoption update and sample scorecard be emailed to all committee members after the meeting.