Agenda item

The Committee considered the report of the Interim Corporate Director of Children & Young People’s Services that presented the report to Members on the Annual report of the Adoption Service and Adoption Panel Report for April 2015 – March 2016 (for copy of report, see file of minutes).

The Head of Children’s Services was in attendance to present the report and highlighted changes to the Adoption Service, challenges, key achievements and priorities for the coming year.  Members were informed that the performance of the adoption service had been assessed as good by Ofsted in the recent inspection.

Members were advised that the adoption process via the courts could be a slow process and outcomes may not be as expected as courts had in some cases chosen to provide guardianship orders to extended family rather than adoption.

Councillor Hart referred to the reasons for people not progressing through the adoption recruitment process and queried smoking or recent cessation of smoking as a reason for applications that had not been progressed and how the numbers for cessation of smoking was falling.

The Head of Children’s Services indicated that the bar for parents was set high and there were health risks from smoking and passive smoking and the County Council had a no smoking policy.