Local democracy

Agenda item

ONE ADOPTION WEST YORKSHIRE (OAWY) ANNUAL REPORT

The report of One Adoption West Yorkshire (Document “A”) provides an overview of the adoption service activity from April 2021 to March 2022.

 

 

 

Recommended -

 

That the Corporate Parenting Panel receives this report and continues to support the work of One Adoption West Yorkshire and the local authority to ensure our adopted children and families receive the best possible support.

 

(Michelle Rawlings – 0113 5350913 Mob: 07712 216979)

 

Minutes:

 

The report of One Adoption West Yorkshire (Document “A”) provided an overview of the adoption service activity from April 2021 to March 2022.

 

 

1.    Michelle Rawling (OAWY) talked through the One Adoption West Yorkshire Annual Report for 2021-22, which covered the West Yorkshire area.

2.    Rhian Beynon (OAWY) talked through the Highlight Performance Report for Bradford, 2021-22, which focused on Bradford District.  [CPP20JulyDocAfullyr]

3.    Referring to section 3.2.4 of the annual report, which dealt with the issue of a small number of GPs who had declined to carry out medicals for prospective adopters, set their own fees or requested that OAWY pay the CCG[1] fees, the Panel asked what the outcome had been of escalating the matter with the local CCGs.  OAWY said that in some cases the issue had been resolved quickly.  However, GPs were not obliged to carry out medicals for prospective adopters.  Asked whether there was a set scale of fees for such medicals, OAWY said that the CCG would refund a set sum but that GPs were free to charge more than that sum.  Replying to questions, OAWY said that this was the case across the region, rather than for Bradford only.

4.    Jude MacDonald (WYHCP) undertook to agree with OAWY an escalation route within WYHCP to resolve such issues, either by negotiating a solution with the GP or by bringing in an alternative practitioner to conduct the required medical examination.

ACTION: Jude MacDonald

5.    Referring to section 3.2.5, the Panel queried the reference to pupils being excluded “unofficially”.  Such exclusions were not unofficial, they were unlawful.  The Head of the Virtual School (HT/VS) said that there was not an increase in such cases, but that they did happen.  Asked how schools reacted when they were challenged, HT/VS said that, if there was a case for the child to be suspended according to the school’s policies and procedures, the child should be formally suspended; if there were no such case, a discussion was required about appropriate provision for the child: schools could not simply tell a child not to come to school.

6.    Turning to section 3.2.7 on special guardianship, the Panel queried the statement that “… the means test cannot be waived where children were not previously looked after, and Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit must be deducted unless the child was previously looked after.”  OAWY explained that a child who stayed with relations who then became special guardians would not have been previously looked after, although they would have been if the family had not stepped in.  If they had been previously looked after, the means test would have been waived.  This meant some families were being means tested and others were not.  OAWY was consulting a QC[2] on how to address this unfairness.

7.    Referring to section 3.3.14 and the trend shown against the A1 indicator from 2018-19 onwards, the Panel noted that the time between entering care and moving in with an adoptive family had increased in Bradford more significantly than it had in neighbouring authorities.  Asked the reason for this, OAWY said that Covid had affected the timeliness of care proceedings, including though delays to Placement Orders and extended family member assessments.  Moreover, the staff turnover and retention issues among Bradford social workers posed a real challenge. 

8.    Turning to section 3.4.1, the panel asked whether the final sentence: “Following retirement, we no longer have the additional three recruitment and assessment social work posts.” indicated that these three posts had been removed from the structure.  OAWY said that these had been time-limited posts established to address the backlog of prospective adopters.  Through natural wastage, the establishment had been returned to its original structure.

9.    Referring to the Compliance Audits (section 3.4.54), the Panel asked for clarification of the table.  OAWY said that compliance audits were the system used to identify any gaps in its data system.  Asked what lay behind the figure of 9% resolved against the adoption support heading, OAWY explained that many cases related to adult adoptees who returned to access their files: they were not asked for the same data as other people and so the data might include gaps – for example, if they had not been asked their ethnicity.  Replying to questions, OAWY said that steps were being taken to amend the system so that such gaps in the data were not identified as anomalies in future.

10.Asked to give an example of an anomaly, OAWY said that a report on adopters might say that they had been matched with a child, while the child’s report said that they had not been matched: this would be an anomaly.  The cause might be that the child’s file had not yet been updated.  There would be no impact on the child: the anomaly would be a purely administrative matter.

11.Replying to questions, OAWY confirmed that West Yorkshire did not have sufficient prospective adopters to meet the need of all children.  This was partly because West Yorkshire had the second highest number of children with adoption plans in the country.  Asked whether an adopter could specify the characteristics of the child they wished to adopt, OAWY said that the agency had to be confident that the match would be successful and that the adoption would last into adulthood.  For some adopters, it would be too much to take on more than one child, for example.  Asked whether the agency would separate siblings, OAWY said that this would only happen if it were specified in the adoption plan.

12.Asked about the mismatch between the number of prospective adopters and need in Bradford, OAWY said that the demographics for Bradford were similar to the rest of West Yorkshire.  Siblings, older children, children with high levels of need and BAME[3] children were harder to place than their peers.  The Panel discussed the historic difficulty of identifying sufficient BAME prospective adopters to meet the need and the research that existed on the reasons, and the need to recruit more BAME adopters.  There was now a national strategic team in place, funded by DfE, to undertake further research.  Asked whether it remained policy to place children with adopters of the same ethnic background, OAWY said that the needs of children were considered holistically: ethnicity, religion and culture were all taken into consideration, but were not overriding factors in determining placements.

13.Asked whether there was a particular need for Eastern European adopters in Bradford, OAWY said that more Eastern European adopters were coming forward, as more Eastern European children also came forward.  The agency reached out to other areas that had more Eastern European adopters as necessary.

14.Asked whether a Bradford child would always be placed within Bradford, OAWY said that they would be placed in West Yorkshire.  The aim was to place children as close to their original home as was safe and possible.

15.Philip Segurola, (Assistant Director, Safeguarding and Review, Commissioning & Provider Services - AD/SRCP) said that the adoption process worked well in Bradford.  There were some issues with delays, partly because it took time to identify the right placement for children with complex needs.  A balance had to be struck between essential and desirable factors in making a placement: it was not always possible to find a perfect match, for example for a child with a complex ethnic profile.  In the case of trans-racial placements, the adoption plan and associated support took account of that. 

16.The Chair observed that significant improvements in the partnership working between the neighbouring authorities had improved their ability to place children and reduced the number of adoption breakdowns.

 

 

 

Resolved

 

1.  That the Corporate Parenting Panel receives this report and continues to support the work of One Adoption West Yorkshire and the local authority to ensure our adopted children and families receive the best possible support.

 

2.  Officers establish escalation process for GP assessments to Panel Members at Bradford and Craven Health and Care Partnership

 

Action: One Adoption West Yorkshire



[1]CCG – Clinical Commissioning Group: CCGs were abolished on 01 July 2022 and replaced by Integrated Care Systems such as West Yorkshire Health and Care Partnership.  These minutes use both terms according to their usage in papers prepared prior to 01 July 2022.

[2]QC – Queen’s Counsel (lawyer)

[3]BAME – Black and Minority Ethnic

Supporting documents: