Agenda item

A report from the Director of Children’s Services is attached. This seeks agreement in principle, to join a London Regional Adoption Agency. (Key decision – reference number 4375)

(Report No.131)

(8.25 – 8.30 pm)

Councillor Ayfer Orhan (Cabinet Member for Education, Children’s Services and Protection) introduced the report of the Director of Children’s Services (No.131) seeking agreement in principle, to join a London Regional Adoption Agency.

NOTED

1.               That the DfE required all local authorities to join a regional agency by 2020 and had invited councils and Voluntary Adoption Agencies to submit expressions of interest in becoming part of new regionalised arrangements.

2.               That all London Boroughs already belonged to an adoption consortium. Enfield was part of the North London consortium. These consortia allowed best practice sharing between local authorities and enabled joint working on some aspects of the service.

3.               The development of regionalised adoption agencies would enable prospective adopters to be recruited more widely, improve the matching opportunities available and so potentially speed up the adoption process.

4.               That there was still a significant amount of development work to do and a number of concerns to be addressed. It was important for Enfield to participate in the discussions taking place and influence future decision making with regard to the development of such adoption agencies. Enfield would be able to decide which regionalised adoption agency to join in the future to ensure that the needs of the Borough were best met. A further report would be brought back to a future Cabinet meeting prior to any final decision being made.

5.               That a significant amount of work had been undertaken to date and would continue to take place. Enfield would participate in discussions and seek reassurances with regard to future improvements to the adoption process and adequate funding provision.

6.               Councillor Fonyonga highlighted the work that had previously been undertaken by Scrutiny on the current adoption processes and expressed the hope that the development of such regionalised adoption agencies would provide increased opportunities for the matching of prospective adopters with the children available for adoption.

7.               That it was anticipated that more detailed proposals would be available by September 2017. Enfield would continue to work with other local authorities in developing the proposals, as set out in the report. There were a significant number of issues to be addressed and worked through in detail before the best way forward for Enfield could be determined. This would be addressed in the future report to Cabinet.

8.               In response to a question raised, Tony Theodoulou (Director of Children’s Services) outlined the detailed assessment processes for prospective adoptive parents. Further detailed information would be provided to Councillor Brett as requested.

Alternative Options Considered: NOTED, that alternatives to the London option would be to join another developing regional agency or create a new model. Other developing regional agencies had not been developed with the involvement of London boroughs. No other regional agencies had proposed a model linked to the governance of London local authorities. The London model was being developed with the complexity of the borough and provider landscape in mind. Many of the models being developed in other regions, for example, single local authority host, would not be appropriate to meet this complexity of need.

Any new agency being developed would have the same timescale requirements and would need to access development funding independently, the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) identified that using existing arrangements (for example, consortia) would not remove the performance and service variation across London and most current consortia regions would not achieve the DfE aims for scale. A sub-divided London would lose the benefit of the wider pool of adopters and the standardisation of service offering.

DECISION: The Cabinet agreed, in principle, to join a London Regional Adoption Agency, subject to detailed financial analysis and business case and delegated authority to the Cabinet Member for Education, Children’s Services and Protection and the Director of Children’s Services, to progress arrangements relating to the development and implementation of the London Regional Adoption Agency model and negotiate with other Regional Adoption Agencies as appropriate. A further report would be brought back to a future Cabinet meeting.

Reason: The London Regional Adoption Agency had been developed to meet the needs of London Boroughs. It would operate in a similar manner to the London Admissions and London Grid for Learning Teams, with governance through ALDAS and London Councils. The DfE require all local authorities to join a regional agency by 2020, therefore “do nothing” was not an available option within the current policy and political landscape. Given the policy drive from the Government and examples of good joint working in other areas of children’s services, a regionalised adoption agency (RAA) was considered to be the best viable option.

(Non key)