Child Care Solicitors

Cambridgeshire has announced that it is among just four local authorities to have met government timescales in placing children for adoption.

Data has been published by the government in the form of an adoption scorecard, which covers the period 2012-2015.

The scorecard information is calculated by using three-year average timescales or percentages for children who received their Adoption Orders between 2012 and 2015.

Cambridgeshire was one of only four local authorities across the country to have met the threshold for timescales in key performance indicators, despite a significant rise in the number of children receiving their Adoption Orders in 2014-15.

A total of 18% of children in Cambridgeshire ceased to be looked after as a result of adoption – compared with a national average of 16%.

The average time between a child entering care and moving in with their adoptive family in Cambridgeshire was 482 days, compared with the national average of 593 days. The national performance threshold for a child entering care to moving to their adopted family is 487 days. Cambridgeshire is ranked 15th nationally in its performance.

The average time between Cambridgeshire County Council receiving authority from a court to place a child and deciding on a match to an adoptive family is an average of 114 days, compared with a national average of 223 days. Within the performance threshold of 121 days, Cambridgeshire is ranked 8th overall.

The council says that the proportion of children from ethnic minority backgrounds who are adopted as a percentage of BME children leaving care is 14% – which is well above the national average of 9%.

Among children aged five or above in Cambridgeshire, those who were placed for adoption as a percentage of children aged five or over leaving care was 7% – above the national average of 5% and an increase on Cambridgeshire’s figure of 6% for the previous year.

The council works in partnership with Coram Cambridgeshire Adoption – a new independent adoption agency established in 2014, with start-up funding from the Department for Education.

The aim of the agency is to speed up the adoption process for children, find more adoptive families – and provide high quality support to adoptive families, by bringing together the best skills and expertise from Coram Charity and the local authority.

Cambridgeshire County Council’s Head of Corporate Parenting, Tracy Collins, said:

“This partnership has brought together both national and local expertise, which has ensured that through good quality social work practice our children achieve early permanence though adoption.

“This provides a positive platform for our involvement within the Regional Adoption Agency work.”

Managing Director of Coram Cambridgeshire Adoption, Sarah Byatt, added:

“These results are testament to the ground-breaking partnership between Cambridgeshire and CCA – and a collaborative commitment to ensuring the best outcomes for children requiring adoption.”

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