Agenda Item * For publication Bedford Borough Council – Mayor Date of Meeting: May 2013 Report by: Councillor Sue Oliver, Lead Member and Portfolio Holder for Children’s Social Care Subject: ADOPTION GRANT 1. Executive Summary 1.1 The Department for Education published ‘An Action Plan for Adoption; Tackling Delay’ in March 2012 as a blueprint for Government intentions to accelerate the adoption process so that more children benefit from adoption and more rapidly. 1.2 Changes to adoption law and practice through publication of new regulations and statutory guidance were made during summer 2012. The changes affected the practice of the Adoption Panel and Agency Decision Making function. Further amendments were proposed as detailed in consultation which finished on 5 December 2012. These changes included radical changes to the recruitment process for adopters, implementation of ‘fostering for adoption’ and changes to the constitution of adoption panels. 1.3 In February 2013 the Department produced allocations and grant documentation for the Adoption Reform Grant for 2013/14. The allocation of the grant to Bedford Borough Council is based on the number of children placed for adoption per LA and the number of children with an adoption decision still waiting to be placed for adoption per LA. The Grant is in 2 parts and must be spent by the end of Financial Year 23013/14: Part A is a grant of £289,863 that the LA can use to drive forward adoption reform, targeting funding at the entire adoption process and the specialist support children need. Part B is a £107,520 grant that the LA is required to spend directly on adoption services. 1.4 From 1 January 2014 Bedford Borough Council will have their own Fostering and Adoption Service following the disaggregation of the existing arrangements with Central Bedfordshire Council 2. Recommendations 2.1 The Mayor is requested to consider and if satisfied agree to; • Accept the Adoption Reform Grant Part A at a value of £289,863 and Part B at a value of £107,520. *(1) 2.2 The Mayor is requested to consider and, if satisfied, agree the following expenditure from Part A; • Additional staffing to improve management oversight and the quality and speed of the Adoption process 2.3 The Mayor is requested to consider and, if satisfied, agree the following expenditure from Part B: • Additional Medical Advice to reduce delay • Family Finding Project to find Adopters • Improve Speed of Adopter Approval • Increase Social Work Capacity to assess Adopters • Admin support for Adopter applications • Sub-regional Adoption Collaborative Support 3. Reasons For Recommendations 3.1 Adoption is one of the Government’s top priorities. Ministers want to create a more effective and user-friendly adoption system. They are determined to ensure that adoption is available for children where this is in their best interests, and they want it to happen without undue delay. The Adoption Grant is intended to improve the quantity and quality of Adoption placements as well as improving the quality of systems and decisions associated with making permanency plans for children and young people. 4. Key Implications 4.1 With the disaggregation of the Fostering and Adoption service from the current service level agreement and provision with Central Bedfordshire Council this Authority will become responsible for a new ‘in house’ provision. This will entail the transfer under TUPE regulations of approximately 27.0 full time equivalent (fte) staff of whom 7.0 fte will form the Adoption service, approximately 75 foster care placements and an undetermined number as yet of potential adopters. This service will be inspected by OfSted as part of their normal inspection responsibilities. Legal Issues 4.2 The Adoption and Children Act 2002 (the Act) is the principal piece of legislation governing adoption in England and Wales. It has been in force since 30 December 2005, and has been amended by other legislation since 2002. Section 3 of the Act places a duty on local authorities to maintain an adoption service within their area, and sets out the minimum facilities that must be made available in the provision of the service. The local authority is not obliged to provide all the facilities itself but may make use of services provided by voluntary adoption agencies and adoption support agencies, or other suitable service providers who are permitted to provide the service in question. The Act implicitly authorises the receipt of grant funding to enable the Council to discharge its duties. In any event the power to receive grant is covered by the general power of competence under the Localism Act 2011. *(2) Policy Issues 4.3 Existing Council Policy is to seek appropriate permanency placements for those children and young people who would benefit whether this be via Adoption or through a Special Guardianship route. Resource Implications 4.4 There are no resource implications, all new posts detailed in Section 5 are fully funded by the Adoption Grant. Risk Implications 4.6 Failure by the Council to carry out it’s duties as an Adoption Agency could see the Council being stripped of this responsibility with a consequent loss of reputation. Environmental Implications 4.7 None Equalities Impact 4.8 The activity has no relevance to Bedford Borough Council’s duty to promote equality of opportunity, promote good relations, promote positive attitudes and eliminate unlawful discrimination. An equality impact assessment is not needed. 5. Details 5.1 The proposal for Part A builds on the successful work already done. It is designed around the need to create a strong specialist group of workers based in the LAC team but able to work across the whole service to improve the quality and delivery of plans for permanence and adoption. All posts will be recruited to via Agency staff and are fully funded by the grant. 5.2 Areas to be covered are; • To drive up the quality of training and supervision for adoption and permanence across the service additional Consultant Social Work management support to the safeguarding and LAC teams will be required. Key areas of focus will include facilitating intra-team working across the service to identify and eliminate blockages that could result in drift or delay in achieving the desired outcomes for children and work with other stakeholders including Health, Independent agencies, CBC (adoption and fostering teams) the courts etc. Additionally there is a need to improve practice, facilitate cooperation and improve communication and prepare a regular monthly report of all cases which will be presented at a monthly monitoring meeting chaired by the Head of Service for Social Work and including the Head of Service for Looked After Provision and involve a range of agencies. *(3) • In order to improve direct support to social workers in the safeguarding and LAC teams to improve their understanding of effective planning for permanence and adoption and for organising effective plans through the identification, monitoring and tracking of all cases additional senior practitioner time holding a limited case load of complex adoption cases is required. They will provide appropriate advice and support to the professional networks involved, to ensure individual children’s plans are being developed and implemented appropriately. • To improve and maintain an up to date data base of all relevant cases and for the provision of reports for senior managers additional administrator time designed to have specific responsibility for supporting the adoption and permanence specialists is required. This will support the team in ensuring the quality of reports and statements relating to Adoption and permanence are well presented and help to track plans, process adoption medicals paperwork and provide general administrative support to the social work team to improve the quality of the administrative process. • Additional Social Worker time with specific responsibility for post proceedings adoption and permanence planning. • Life Story work: There are 2 parts to this role that need to be met; the first is to ensure that life story books have been produced to a high standard for babies and younger aged children. The second is the need for direct work with older children and young people to enable them to produce their own life story books. • Specialist training: There is a need to ensure that all staff in the authority have access to specialist high quality training to improve the quality of their assessment and planning for adoption. The proposal is for up to 6 separate days of training to ensure that all staff have the opportunity to attend. • Consultant Support: There is a need for expert Consultant input to ensure that plans for the enhanced Fostering and Permanence meet Government and Ofsted regulatory standards and expectations. The Consultant will also lead on negotiations regarding how the new Permanence Team arrangements can fit with wider regional, sub regional or multi regional arrangements. It is anticipated this resource would be needed for 3 days/week for 26 weeks. 5.3 The proposal for part B of the grant is as follows; • Reducing delays in securing medical advice • Finding families for difficult to place children and reduce delays in matching children • Increasing the number of adopters and speed of approval • Recruitment of sufficient adopters to meet numbers of children to be placed 5.4 During 2013/14 further discussions are being held to consider a sub regional Adoption collaborative to ensure recruitment and support of a wide range of potential adoptive placements, this is in line with current Government thinking on regional work to improve Adoption outcomes. The balance of the funding from part A and part B will be required to support this innovation. 5.5 No alternative options to the employment of additional staff have been identified that improve Adoption performance and quality.