chapter seven: councils quality and results
This chapter sets out the changes the Government will make to improve council performance on adoption, particularly:
• issuing guidance to improve financial planning;
• identifying good and poor performance sooner;
• spreading best practice;
• addressing poor performance; and
• improving joint working with other councils and with voluntary adoption agencies.
7.1 The Government will take specific additional measures to drive up standards for adoption services in all councils, and to achieve greater consistency between councils. It will take steps to improve organisation of adoption services, help councils work together better, monitor performance more effectively, and react quickly to improve poor performance. All councils should constantly make efforts to improve. The Government will drive this improvement by:
• issuing statutory guidance on financial planning for councils;
• encouraging councils to reorganise their services for permanence;
• changing information systems to help the Government monitor performance more effectively;
• supporting the work of the Adoption and Permanence Taskforce, a time-limited measure to help councils that are having problems and to spread best practice;
• using the Beacon Scheme to spread best practice;
• using a range of options to deal with poor performance, including powers under the Local Government Act 1999;
• encouraging co-operation between councils, including facilitating consortia arrangements;
• encouraging councils to include adoption in their local Public Service Agreements;
• in the case of persistently poor performance, for instance where the safety of looked after children was at risk, the Secretary of State might, as a last resort, take responsibility for a failing adoption service away from the council, and require them to give it to another council or an approved adoption agency.
Finance
7.2 In 2001, the Government will issue new guidance to help councils in planning for adoption allowances, including forecasting, as the PIU report recommended.
7.3 It will also begin intensive work with a small group of selected councils to pilot innovative approaches to children's services commissioning, to help councils to identify barriers to effective organisation of services to promote permanence, develop best practice and pilot new models for planning services. This will include helping them to focus on Best Value, and look at the most effective use of resources in the round, for example by considering the up-front short-term costs of adoption, such as the interagency fee and staff time, alongside the longer term costs of supporting looked after children, not only financially, but also the cost to the children in terms of their future life chances, and to society more generally.
7.4 This work will be helpful to councils in planning their services to maximise the use of adoption, and ensure that as many children as possible are living in safe, stable, loving families. The Government will disseminate work in progress and the final results to all councils.
Organisation of adoption services within councils
7.5 Councils may be able to improve their performance on adoption by changing the way they organise their services. Some councils are finding that establishing a 'permanence team' is allowing them to reduce the length of time children have to wait for adopters (see Box).
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Southampton established a permanence team in 1997, to cover all aspects of adoption. The recruitment and assessment of prospective adopters is combined with the preparation and placement of all children for whom a plan for adoption has been identified. Case responsibility is transferred to the team from other operational teams once care proceedings are complete. Contingency planning is now established practice and provides a virtually seamless transfer between teams, with the plan for adoption being considered by the adoption panel prior to the final court hearing. The waiting time has thus been reduced especially for babies with no special placement needs.
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Changing information systems
7.6 At a national level, performance is monitored through data such as that provided by the Performance Assessment Framework, evaluation through inspections and joint reviews carried out by the Social Services Inspectorate and the Audit Commission, and by checking progress against national standards. At a local level, there are various other ways of improving performance, including Best Value reviews and performance indicators, regular or occasional user satisfaction surveys, and demonstration projects.
7.7 The Best Value review powers are also an effective way to make change happen in the delivery of services for looked after children. The Government expects councils to make full use of Best Value reviews to challenge their own performance and to raise standards of performance where they are currently failing or fall short of those offered by the best of their peers. Councils should know the skill mix of their workforce, and use this information to ensure that they use the skills of their staff to the full.
7.8 Councils should actively use the information collected by Government, and also collect locally relevant information for themselves, to identify early any areas that need improvement. The Data Model, published for consultation in October 2000, sets out, for children's services, the minimum data to be collected by each council. This information will support councils in planning services appropriate to the needs of children in their area.
7.9 To help councils monitor their own performance on adoption more effectively, the Government will be working with the field to review the current statistics on adoption, and to consider the best way of gathering effective information to support the implementation of this White Paper.
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Relatively modest improvements in the reliability of information systems can have a dramatic and positive impact on quality. Nottinghamshire has improved the reliability of its mainframe database to provide the basis of its children's information system, rather than invest in a completely new system. Managers have used the new, more reliable information to shorten waiting times for adoption.
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Research
7.10 The Government is already funding research on the costs and outcomes of non-infant adoption, decision making in permanence planning and delays in the adoption process. It intends to take forward further research to underpin the development of policy on adoption and permanence planning in the light of this White Paper. In particular, more research is needed on:
• identifying successful models for post-placement support;
• comparisons between long-term foster care and adoption in terms of success, stability and lifetime outcomes for children;
• models of consortia arrangements;
• what motivates people to apply to adopt and what works in attracting them;
• best practice in assessment of prospective adopters.
Adoption and Permanence Taskforce
7.11 The Government has accepted the PIU's recommendation that there should be an Adoption and Permanence Taskforce. The Taskforce has already been set up and is made up of 33 part-time members, who will work with individual authorities in teams of five or six.
7.12 The membership has been drawn from a panel of experts working in social services, the voluntary and the independent sector. They have all been chosen for the very different skills that they have in relation to adoption services. Many of the members come from social services and will understand the difficulties experienced by councils in their adoption services and will support them to take on best practice methods and improve standards.
7.13 The Taskforce will work with councils that are performing well on adoption, as well as those that are not, to help improve their performance and identify, develop and disseminate models of best practice. It will be a champion for change and performance improvement, identifying and tackling unnecessary barriers to change. The Taskforce will undertake a preliminary visit with a council and then discuss and agree the best way of providing support to, and building capacity in, the organisation. The Taskforce will assist with the production of a development plan to deliver improvements in the process of planning and delivering families for looked after children. It will work with the council for the duration of the development plan to provide support and assist with implementation.
7.14 In selecting councils for the initial work programme, the Government looked at performance on a range of indicators. The first eleven councils have been identified and the first preliminary visits have already taken place at two councils.
Spreading best practice
7.15 The Government will encourage councils to use the Beacon Council Scheme as a vehicle to spread best practice and good overall performance. Adoption is being considered as a Beacon theme for 200102, and if chosen, selected councils will be funded to spread best practice by 2002. The Government will encourage councils to apply as single applicants or as a consortium to illustrate joint working practices that have worked and how best practice is linked to good performance management.
7.16 Quality Protects Regional Development Workers support councils' implementation of Quality Protects. Other ways of spreading best practice included under the Quality Protects umbrella are the recent Quality Protects in practice conference, and the Quality Protects newsletter and website (www.doh.gov.uk/qualityprotects/index.htm). There are also a series of Quality Protects Research Briefings, which are designed to help frontline staff put research findings into practice.
7.17 The proposed Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) will have an important role in spreading best practice and improving consistency in the quality of care. It will establish a knowledge base for social care and develop guidelines about what works in practice and service delivery. The knowledge base will be drawn from a rigorous evaluation of research and other evidence of good practice and from the experience of users and carers, managers and practitioners. SCIE's guidelines will be based on the best, most up-to-date knowledge available. They will help managers and frontline staff to make better decisions, and also inform monitoring and regulation.
7.18 The Government is considering the role that health and social care awards might play in rewarding and sharing best practice. It will also facilitate a forum, in which key interested groups from councils and voluntary adoption agencies can meet and discuss best practice and learn from each other.
Local Public Service Agreements
7.19 The Government will work with interested councils to encourage them to include adoption and other permanent placements in their local Public Service Agreements. The aim of local Public Service Agreements is to get improvements over and above those required by Best Value. Under the scheme, councils sign up to stretching targets reflecting a mix of national and local priorities. In return, councils will receive up to £1m pump-priming funding, agreed freedoms and flexibilities and financial rewards for success from the new Performance Reward Fund. The Government will be looking to pilot some of the ideas set out in this White Paper with those councils adopting the Public Service Agreement target on adoption.
7.20 There will be up to 20 pilot councils starting in April 2001 and the scheme will be extended in 200203 to as many of the 150 upper-tier councils as wish to take part. Local Public Service Agreements offer real potential for improved performance in adoption services.
Performance management
7.21 As set out in Chapter 4, the Government will set new National Standards for adoption services. The National Care Standards Commission, which will be fully operational by April 2002, will be responsible for regulating voluntary adoption agencies. It will also inspect local social services authority adoption services relating to the recruitment of adopters and the placement of children. If the Commission finds problems with a council adoption service, it will report them to the Secretary of State, who can then take action.
7.22 This will provide an independent mechanism for regulating adoption services provided by voluntary adoption agencies, and ensuring the quality of services for both voluntary adoption agencies and local social services authorities.
7.23 The Government has a range of powers to use if a council consistently fails to provide a reasonable level of service, and will act firmly to deal with such councils. The action it takes will be decided on a case by case basis and will depend on the seriousness of the failure. The options for action include:
• carrying out an emergency inspection to obtain additional information, where there is evidence-based concern about the performance of a particular council. The Social Services Inspectorate would take an in-depth look at these services, and identify any issues of concern. After the results of the inspection had been considered, further action could be taken if necessary;
• asking the Adoption and Permanence Taskforce to work with specified councils that are failing to provide adoption services at the level expected of them;
• placing a council on enhanced monitoring or 'special measures' with regular checks by the Social Services Inspectorate on the delivery of an agreed action plan;
• using intervention powers available under the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 or the Local Government Act 1999. The nature of the intervention would vary according to the type and seriousness of the failure. In the worst cases, for instance where the safety of looked after children was at risk, the Secretary of State might, as a last resort, take responsibility for a failing adoption service away from the council, and require them to give it to another council or an approved adoption agency. Such instances are likely to be rare and councils would usually be given the opportunity to turn their services around before these powers were used.
Encouraging co-operation
7.24 The Government believes that joint working between councils and voluntary adoption agencies can be a way of achieving more effective recruitment and assessment of adopters, and better organisation and service provision, as well as sharing best practice. This may help councils find families more quickly for children who need them. The Government will therefore encourage councils and voluntary adoption agencies to work together in consortia.
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After Adoption is now contracted to provide a range of post-placement support services for a number of North West councils, focused on the Greater Manchester area. The services are available to birth parents, children or adoptive families at both the post-placement and post-adoption stage, and take-up across the region has been very encouraging. The project, as a registered charity, is proving very effective at raising additional funding.
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7.25 Several groups of councils are already exploring the use of consortia arrangements as a way of improving joint working and delivering better adoption services. The Government will also take action which will make the creation of consortia easier. It will shortly consult on using the powers under section 16 of the Local Government Act 1999 to promote integrated working, and hopes to enable councils to:
• pool budgets, appoint lead commissioners, jointly commission and integrate the delivery of goods and services with others in the public, private and voluntary sectors;
• form and participate in companies, statutory joint boards, and to second or loan staff to others;
• provide a wider range of goods and services to partners, whether in the public or private sectors.
7.26 Combined with the partnership provisions in the Health Act 1999, this will mean that social services will be able to work more closely with all the key players in local government, voluntary agencies and the wider public service to find new permanent families for looked after children and provide support to them.
7.27 The Government expects most councils to become members of consortia over time. It will work with councils and voluntary adoption agencies, as they develop models of consortia, to see how well each model works in the interests of finding new families for children who need them, and will then promote the best models more widely.
7.28 The Government's vision for effective consortia arrangements between councils and voluntary adoption agencies includes:
• a long-term (three or four year) view of financial flows, to detach the issue of resources from individual children;
• an agreement on the number of prospective adopters that each agency or council is expected to provide;
• moves towards the use of a model based upon pooled budgets/joint commissioning.
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