Issue - meetings

Report by Carolyn Godfrey, Corporate Director

Cllr Laura Mayes, Cabinet member for Children’s Services presented a report updating Cabinet on the performance of the Wiltshire Adoption Service for the period 1 October 2012 to 31 March 2013. This was to ensure that Cabinet was satisfied that the service was effective and achieving good outcomes for children, young people and service users as required by statute and national minimum standards.

The Department for Education had previously issued the Council with an Improvement Notice. The Notice had addressed issues in the April 2012 Ofsted report on the inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children in Wiltshire and the recommendations made as a result of the Adoption Scorecard and Diagnostic Assessment.

Since then and with an Adoption Improvement Plan in place, there had been a noted improvement. Data as at 31 March 2013 indicated that the average time between Wiltshire receiving a court order to place a child and deciding on a match to an adoptive family was 122 days compared to a national average of 195 days. The average time from a child entering care and moving in with an adoptive family was 630 days compared to a national average of 636 days.

The Adoption Service was the subject of a further inspection on 5 March 2013. The resulting report commented that Wiltshire provided  an ‘effective, well managed and improving adoption service.’ The report also stated that outcomes for children were ‘rapidly improving’ and that 85% of children were now placed within 12 months of a decision that they should be adopted. The Inspectors acknowledged the strengths of the Adoption Team commenting that they ‘comprise experienced, knowledgeable and resourceful staff who engage in high quality individual work with children and adults affected by adoption.’

Cllr Mayes and the Leader were pleased with the significant improvements made to the service in such a short period of time and paid tribute to the adoption and fostering teams who made this possible. In terms of the data presented, Cllr Mayes commented that decisions made must always be in the best interests of the child. The Leader added that the Council would always look for a permanent home solution.

Resolved:

(a)     That Cabinet notes and accepts the contents of the Adoption Agency report and

(b)     That the Council endorses Ofsted recommendations Action Plan as set out in Appendix 3 of the report presented.

Reason for decision

The 2011 Statutory Adoption Guidance and the 2011 Adoption Minimum Standards place a requirement on local authority adoption services to ensure that the executive of the Council receives a written report on the management, outcomes and financial state of the adoption agency to satisfy themselves that the agency is effective and is achieving good outcomes for children and/or service users. They must also satisfy themselves that the agency is complying with the conditions of registration (Minimum Standard 25.6; Statutory Adoption Guidance 3.3, and 5.39).