Minutes:
1. Mrs Whittle gave an oral update on the following issues:-
The DfE's announcement of out of area placements for children in care – regulations would now prohibit any placement at a distance from a child’s home where there was not a good reason for the distance (for example, a need for specialised care not available anywhere nearer), and would make the placing authority more accountable for where they place children. This announcement was welcomed as the County Council had campaigned for some time to reduce distant placements. The new rules would take a little time to take effect as they would not alter existing placements, but would affect independent fostering agencies in Kent, which took many children from London Boroughs.
The new regulations also required more information to be made available to the public on the quality of homes in which children were placed. However, this raised safeguarding concerns about the locations of children’s homes becoming more widely known, and by whom. The location of homes should be known only to those professionals who need the information, such as the Police.
Funding for Staying Put - £400million had been made available to support young people in care who wished to stay with their foster families beyond the age of 18. There would be changes in benefits eligibility and arrangements for the payment of these benefits would change.
The DfE's announcement of a further £50million investment in adopter recruitment – this was very welcome and supported the County Council’s drive to increase its adopter recruitment and address adopters’ skills, for example, to increase the number of adopters able to support children with special needs. Prospective adopters would be able to see a map indicating the adoption record of local authorities before they committed to become adopters. Mrs Whittle referred to the increase in successful adoptions since 2010 (from a total of 60 in 2010 to an expected130 in the first three months of 2014). She placed on record her thanks to Coram and the Adoption Support Team for all their work in improving the County Council’s Adoption service.
2. Mrs Whittle responded to comments and questions from Members, as follows:-
a) although the restriction on unnecessarily distant placements was welcomed, some young people needed to be placed away from their home area for their own safety or to escape disruptive and negative influences. A risk assessment would need to be undertaken by the placing authority before making a placement;
b) concern was expressed about the location of children’s homes in relation to rehabilitation centres housing ex-prisoners, and the difficulties of having no overview of the location of each. Mrs Whittle responded that no children’s home would be opened near such a known a facility, but it was possible that a bail hostel might since have opened in the area. What would help was to specify that one facility would not be allowed to open within a specified distance of the other type of facility.
3. Mr Lobban then gave an oral update on the following issues:-
The Improvement Notice had been lifted on 12 December.
4. The oral updates were noted.