Agenda item
Inspection on Adoption Services in Brent
The purpose of this report is to provide an update on the outcome of the Adoption inspection which took place between 13 and 17 February 2012.
Minutes:
Graham Genoni (Assistant Director Children’s Social Care) presented a report to the committee, updating members’ on the outcome of the Ofsted Adoption Inspection which took place between 13 and 17 February 2012.
Graham Genoni noted that there had been considerable national focus on Adoption services in recent months and the Coalition government had emphasised its commitment to improving these services. The government had expressed several specific concerns including that children were not placed quickly enough, ethnic minority children waited longer to be adopted, prospective adopters were not approved quickly enough and the number of children adopted nationally was decreasing. In response to these concerns, Graham Genoni noted that children with complex needs might wait a long time before they were adopted and that lengthy court proceedings often contributed to the delay experienced by some children. Furthermore, the depth of the assessments conducted with respect to prospective adopters was deemed appropriate. The decreasing number of adoptions coincided with an increasing use of Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs) which offered an alternative form of permanency for child. Under an SGO the rights of the birthparents were not completely removed and this could often be desirable for older children.
Graham Genoni advised that the full inspection report was provided at Appendix A. An overall quality rating of ‘satisfactory’ had been achieved, with three areas receiving a ‘good’ rating and the remaining two areas a ‘satisfactory’ rating. Four recommendations had been made within the inspection judgement and these were set out at paragraph 4.7 of the report. The action plan developed in response to these recommendations was included at Appendix 2 to the report. The inspection report had been positive overall and in particular had noted the borough’s active approach to recruiting prospective adopters from a range of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, reflecting Brent’s diverse community; the successful placement of most children within the twelve month timescale; and, that there had only been one adoption placement breakdown in the last three years. The local authority had been deemed to have good involvement with birthparents and to offer good support and training to prospective adopters. In addition, the inspectors had been impressed with the Adoption and Permanency Panel and with the support offered by the Children and Adolescence Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
During the members discussion several queries were raised by the committee. The Chair queried how many children were currently waiting to be adopted and how many Brent approved adopters were currently waiting to be matched. The Chair also sought confirmation that the process was compliant with the Equality Act. Councillor Al-Ebadi queried what level of input a child’s birthparents would have in deciding the nature of an adoptive placement. Alloysius Frederick queried whether under an SGO a child could chose to have contact with his or her birthparents in the future.
In response to members’ queries, Graham Genoni explained that at present there were approximately 15 children waiting to be adopted and the average time it took to place a child in Brent for adoption was 7 months. In placing a child, the department worked hard to ensure an appropriate balance was achieved between minimising delay for a child and ensuring that the most suitable match was identified. The costs of placing a child with an adoptive family approved by another local authority varied between £2,000 and £5,000 and if a child was placed with prospective adopters from a national adoption agency these costs could increase to around £30,000. Prospective adopters which had been approved by Brent were therefore considered prior to external adopters. The council had previously developed a strategy of assessing prospective adopters with a view to ‘selling’ them to other adoption agencies for similar fees to those charged by other local authorities. Graham Genoni advised that he would provide details of the number of in-house adopters to the committee but noted that the pool of adopters was kept at a reasonable size. The process of assessing adopters was fully compliant with the Equality Act and the department had established active links with gay and lesbian community groups. The views of the birthparents on the type of adoptive placement that they would like for their child were sought and considered by social workers within the process of family finding; however, the needs of the child were paramount and for example, the department would not exclude gay and lesbian prospective adopters from consideration due to a birthparents stated objection. Children placed for adoption or under an SGO on reaching adulthood would be free to have contact with their birthparents if they chose and the department would provide lots of support in these circumstances.
RESOLVED: -
i. That the outcome of the Adoption inspection report for Brent be noted.
ii. That the committee’s endorsement of the Action Plan be noted
iii. That the committee’s wish of the department’s continued success in improving the service be noted.
Supporting documents:
- adoption-inspection-report, item 7. PDF 66 KB
- adoption-inspection-appendix-a, item 7. PDF 108 KB
- adoption-inspection-appendix-b, item 7. PDF 37 KB