Issue - meetings

The Cabinet Member for Health and Social Care Integration presented a report on the Councils Adoption and Corporate Parenting Annual Reports.

The Council was required to produce annual reports on Corporate Parenting and Adoption. Compared with previous years the reports presented are distinct in their origin. The Corporate Parenting Annual Report was produced, as it always has been, by Council Officers. The Adoption Annual Report was the first produced since the Council joined the Regional Adoption Agency (Adopt London East) as mandated to so by government.

The appended Adoption Annual Report had, therefore, been produced by Adopt London East and covered the period of 1st October 2019 to end of March 2020. Whilst these reports were important documents, it should be noted that they were required to be produced as stand-alone documents, and do not necessarily reflect the Councils more considered approach to system-wide improvement for our children and young people, something which was more clearly reflected in our Annual Self-Evaluation that was presented to Cabinet at the start of each calendar year.

In response to questions, the Cabinet Member advised that:

·  The 15 children adopted children in the period of the report were local children who had been adopted either within or outside of the Borough;

·  There were 402 young people that Members were the corporate parent for and it was important for Members, where possible, to step forward to be mentors for young people, with the Councils assistance;

·  Skittles, a group of young people in care, attended the Corporate Parenting Group on a regular basis and once a year ran one of the meetings.

The Assembly resolved to:

(i)  Note the contents of the two annual reports on adoption and corporate parenting respectively; and

(ii)  Note developments in children’s social care over the last 6 months and support their reflection in a more useful, timely and purposeful strategy.