Index Number:
No. 1.09b
Document:
Corporate Parenting Strategy
(This sets out our approach to key
strategic issues, including achieving
permanence for looked-after children and
ensuring that we have sufficient placements
available)
Approved by:
Head of Children’s Social Care,
January 2016
Date Published:
January 2016
Review Date:
April 2016
Lead Officer:
Rachel Farnham, Head of
Children’s Social Care
Description:
This sets out our approach to key
strategic issues, including achieving
permanence for looked-after
children and ensuring that we have
sufficient placements available
The Council as a Corporate Parent
A strategic overview
January 2016
Contents
1.
What this document is ............................................................................................... 4
2.
Pressures on services after 2011 .............................................................................. 4
3.
Ensuring that there are sufficient placements in Northumberland ............................. 7
4.
Planning for permanence .......................................................................................... 9
Appendix 1: Children’s Services – Strategic Planning .................................................... 12
Appendix 2 – Children’s Services Performance Framework .......................................... 13
Appendix 3: Profile of looked-after children .................................................................... 15
Appendix 4: Options for permanence ............................................................................. 18
Appendix 5: Governance and Accountability……………………………………………….24
1.
What this document is
1.1
This Strategic Overview sets out the main issues currently facing the Council in its
role as the “parent” of around 350 children1. It focuses on the most important issues
that the Council needs to pay attention to over the coming year.
1.2
The Council has a positive record as a “corporate parent”. When Ofsted inspected
the Council’s services for “looked after” children in early 2012, its overall conclusion
was that they were “Good”. But in the years immediately after that, these services
have come under considerable strain, primarily because of a very rapid increase in
the number of children looked after by the Council. Between March 2011 and
February 2015, the number of looked-after children increased from 266 to 366 – an
increase of nearly 40%. Safe and appropriate arrangements were made for all of
these children, but the pressure on services made it a challenge to maintain the high
level of stability for looked after children which the Council had previously achieved.
1.3
The number of children looked after is no longer increasing. Section 2 looks at the
reasons why the rapid increase took place and the lessons learned from this
experience. We cannot know for certain how numbers will change in the future,
since this depends in part on national policy and on the effects of social and
economic changes, but we do not expect the specific combination of circumstances
which we have recently experienced to be repeated.
1.4
With the position stabilised, we are now considering what needs to happen in future
to make sure that we fulfil our role as corporate parents as well as we possibly can.
This Strategic Overview is a step towards that, and will be followed by more detailed
plans for improvement.
1.5
The primary focus of this document is on the core objectives of achieving
permanence for children and having sufficient placements to ensure that there are
good options for all looked-after children. As we develop more detailed plans, we
will also be focusing on the broader outcomes which are being achieved for lookedafter children, during and after their time in care. The outcomes currently being
achieved are described fully in a separate document, Virtual School Outcomes,
prepared by the Council’s “virtual headteacher” for looked-after children. This
provides a wide range of information about both outcomes within the education
system and subsequent outcomes, including the living arrangements and
employment or training status of young people who have moved on from the
education and care systems.
2.
Pressures on services after 2011
2.1
Nationally, the number of children looked after by local authorities has increased in
every year since 2008, for reasons which may include both the impact on public
Strictly, the Council does not have parental responsibility for all of the children it “looks after”, in the
language of the Children Act 1989. About 150 children are looked after by the Council by agreement with
their parents, who continue to have legal parental responsibility for them. Most others are the subject of
court orders which have transferred parental responsibility to the Council. The exact numbers of children
“looked after” by the Council vary from week to week.
1
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 4
awareness of the death of “Baby P” in 2007 and the economic and social impacts of
the financial crisis of 2008. Demographic change has also contributed, but the
proportion of under-18s looked after by a local authority has also been rising.
However the increase has not been even across the country. Nationally, the
cumulative increase since 2008 in the proportion of children looked after has been
11%; in the North East the increase has been 34.5%, the highest of any region. In
London, the proportion of children looked-after fell by 21% over the period – with the
biggest reductions in Inner London. In March 2015, a higher proportion of children
were looked after by the local authority in Northumberland than in Inner London – a
dramatic reversal of the historic pattern .
2.2
One driver of changes in Northumberland therefore seems to have been wider
developments in the social and economic geography of England. It is often
suggested that social change has caused particular difficulties for white working
class communities in areas where historic sources of employment are in decline,
including former coalmining areas and coastal towns. The areas in Northumberland
where families most often require children’s social care services fall into both of
these categories. There is a broadly similar national pattern in the overall
educational achievement of adolescents, as measured by GCSE performance, with
marked improvements in outcomes for children in Inner London and relative decline
in areas including the North East – though in Northumberland there are now signs of
success in breaking away from this pattern, with GCSE performance improving
significantly over the past year.
2.3
However Northumberland’s experience has not simply matched that of the wider
North East. Between 2008 and 2011, the number of looked-after children in the
County actually fell in Northumberland, from 300 to 266. at a time when it was rising
sharply elsewhere in the region. The growth in numbers in Northumberland began
late, took place very rapidly, and coincided with a number of other changes which
made its impact challenging to manage.
2.4
One trigger for this growth appears to have been an inspection by Ofsted, carried
out as part of a thematic national inspection across a sample of eleven local
authorities of their response to neglect. This identified examples of good practice in
Northumberland, but also prompted a greater focus on protecting children –
particularly young children – from the long-term harm caused by parental neglect.
2.5
The most immediate impact seems to have been a strong focus on protecting
children by looking after them away from their parents. Northumberland does not
seem to have been alone in this. Across the eleven local authorities included in the
thematic inspection, the number of children who became looked after in each year
increased between 2011-12 and 2013-14 by 28%, compared with a national
increase of 8%. In Northumberland the increase was 50% (and in some other
authorities it was even higher). In 2012/13, 86 children became looked after in
Northumberland with the reason recorded as abuse or neglect, compared with only
26 children in 2010/11.
2.6
This response reflects an initial focus on the need to remove children from parents
who were not coping, and showed no prospect of being able to do so. The other
key element of a comprehensive response is improved targeting of early
intervention services, aiming to identify children at risk of neglect at the stage when
it may be most effective to support families to improve their parenting. Possibly as a
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 5
result of the development of better-targeted support for these families, the number
of children being removed from their parents has begun to fall – though it remains
higher than in the years before 2012, and this is likely to remain appropriate.
2.7
One component of the overall increase in the number of looked-after children arose
as a result of clarification of the legal position, and had only limited impacts on
children’s actual experiences. Advice about when the legal framework of being
“looked after” should apply to children who move to live with relatives or friends as a
consequence of concerns about the care provided by their parents led to a sharp
increase in 2012-13 in the number of children cared for in this way who were
formally recognised as being in foster care arranged by the local authority, and
therefore as being legally “looked after”. But much of the increase reflected real
changes in children’s care arrangements: the number of children placed with foster
carers outside their previous family circle was around 210 throughout the period
from late 2013 to early 2015, compared to around 160 during 2012.
2.8
The increase in the number of children needing placements coincided with two other
changes whose combined effect compounded the pressure on services:
a) A review of the Council’s in-house foster carers found that a number of them did
not fully meet the requirements of national regulations issued in 2011 which set
the standards which foster carers are expected to meet, or did not wish to take
on additional training and other requirements associated with the regulations. As
a result, between March 2013 and March 2014, the number of children placed
with in-house foster carers fell from a typical level of around 130 in 2012-13 to
under 100 in mid-2014, reversing a previous upwards trend.
b) A fall in the capacity of children’s homes in the County, because of the combined
effect of the planned closure of the last two residential units on the Netherton
Park site (formerly a large Children’s Home with Education) and the unexpected
closure in 2012 of an independent sector children’s home in Newcastle which
had accommodated eight children placed by the Council.
2.9
This combination of circumstances was managed by making greatly increased use
of independent fostering agencies (IFAs). The number of children placed with these
agencies increased from less than 50 in 2011/12 to more than 90 by the autumn of
2013. At the peak in mid 2014, there were more than 110 children in IFA
placements or placements with neighbouring local authorities’ foster care services.
That there was the capacity available to absorb this increase without children having
to move further away from their families demonstrates the resilience of child care
services in the region, but there was a high financial cost, and more children were
placed outside Northumberland (though mostly in Tyne and Wear rather than at any
greater distance).
2.10 The pressure on placements also affected other aspects of children’s experience –
in particular, children experienced more moves between placements. In March
2011, 78% of children who had been looked after for two and a half years or more
had been in the same placement for at least two years; in March 2014, the
proportion was 69%.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 6
Lessons learned
2.11 We have also drawn from these experiences some lessons for the future:
a) We need to continue to develop targeted early support for parents who are not
coping, so that in those situations where this is possible we intervene before
removal of children becomes the only viable solution.
b) We need to be sure that we have a coherent overall view about the various
demands placed on the overall system of support for looked-after children, and
that we keep this under regular review.
2.12 In the immediate future, our organisational focus needs most of all to be on
three core issues:
● Strengthening our capacity to intervene early where children are not being
cared for well enough by their parents, so that situations less often
deteriorate to the point where children need to be looked after
● Ensuring that there are sufficient appropriate and good quality placements
available for looked after children
● Ensuring that there is early and effective planning to achieve permanence
for children who become looked after
2.13 We have developed separately a new Early Help Strategy setting out how we will
work with other agencies to provide low level services at the right time to meet
families’ needs and to keep them in control of resolving their issues and problems.
early intervention. We are also currently refreshing our multi-agency strategy for
addressing parental neglect, which starts from a shared view that the early
recognition of neglect and timely and effective responses to neglect is vital in
providing families with the help they need. This Strategic Overview does not repeat
the contents of those strategies, but focuses on the issues of sufficiency and
permanence.
3.
Ensuring that there are sufficient placements in Northumberland
3.1
Since 2011, local authorities have had a statutory duty2 to take all the steps which
they reasonably can to ensure that there is sufficient appropriate accommodation
available within their own area for children who need to be looked after.
3.2
The growth in numbers described in section 2 above had an impact on this. Up to
March 2011, the proportion of children needing foster care who were
accommodated outside the geographic boundaries of Northumberland was under
20%. In March 2014 it was almost 36%.
3.3
Given the geography of Northumberland, the use of independent foster care
agencies based in Tyneside does not necessarily mean that children are being
2
The duty is in Section 22G of the Children Act 1989, inserted by the Children and Young Persons Act 2008,
and implemented from April 2011. Statutory guidance on the duty was issued in 2010.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 7
accommodated at a greater distance from their families. In fact, at the end of March
2015, children accommodated by foster care services other than the Council’s own
service were on average living 16 miles away from their parents, which was slightly
less than the equivalent figure for children living with in-house foster carers. This
reflects the fact that a high proportion of looked-after children come from South East
Northumberland, which is close to Tyneside.
3.4
Given the history in recent years, reducing the proportion of children placed outside
Northumberland will now take time, for a number of reasons:
a) During 2015 we have identified about 50 children currently placed with IFA foster
carers where we have assessed that it is likely to be in their best interests for
them to stay with the same family as a permanent arrangement. Both statutory
guidance and good professional practice make it unacceptable to move children
simply to achieve a target for placements within the local authority boundary.
b) Recruiting additional foster carers to the Council’s in-house service takes time,
because of the importance of rigorous selection and training. The number of
children placed with in-house foster carers has increased since its low point, but
remains below the level in 2013; we are now developing a strategy for increasing
recruitment to the service and the number of placements offered.
c) Likewise, the impact of more focused early intervention with families where
children are at risk of neglect will be gradual.
3.5
Because of the pressing need to find placements, IFAs were used between 2012
and 2014 for children in a wide range of circumstances, whereas in more normal
times they would be a solution mainly for children with very specific needs which the
in-house service cannot meet at the point when a placement is required – for
instance sibling groups who need to be accommodated together, children with
particularly challenging patterns of behaviour, or children who need to be
accommodated away from their previous family or social networks to protect them
from harm.
3.6
Our key priorities for foster care are:
● To expand the in-house foster care service. We will monitor the changing
balance of need, and consider whether there is a requirement to make
changes to how the service recruits, supports and retains foster carers –
but in the immediate future, the primary need is to increase overall capacity
to match what is likely to be a continuing raised level of demand. Our
current goal is to increase the capacity of the in-house service by 50 places
by 2018.
● To ensure that local IFAs provide high quality services, and can meet
specialist and intermittent needs, and offer value for public money. The
Council is a member of a sub-regional consortium which negotiated a new
contractual framework from April 2015, which an increased number of local
IFAs have signed up to. This strengthens quality assurance and improves
value for money.
3.7
A much smaller number of children need to be accommodated in children’s homes,
or in residential schools (which mainly accommodate children with very severe
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 8
disabilities). Numbers are much smaller than for foster care, and the balance of
placements can vary for that reason, but here the trends are more positive, with falls
both in the total number of children placed in residential care and in the proportion of
those children who were living outside the County. In March 2011, half of the 28
children placed in children’s homes were living outside Northumberland; in March
2015, only a quarter of the 19 children in children’s homes were doing so. The
Council aims to place children only in children’s homes rated by Ofsted as “Good” or
“Outstanding”.
3.8
The small number of children placed in residential schools – six in March 2015 – are
nearly always in schools outside Northumberland, because the very specialist needs
which call for residential schooling can often only be met across regional catchment
areas – and, conversely, because if schools in Northumberland can meet disabled
children’s needs, there is rarely a need for them to live in school accommodation.
3.9
Our key priorities for residential accommodation for children are:
● To review the outcome of the planned reduction in capacity in the
Council’s children’s homes. Northumberland now has a lower proportion
of looked-after children in residential care than the English average – in
March 2014, the figure in Northumberland was 6% compared to an England
figure of 9%3. Pressure on foster care because of the other factors
described above has made it hard to assess the overall impact of reduced
capacity; we are not currently planning new accommodation, but we intend
to review further whether we have the balance right.
● To maintain our target of placing children in “good” or “outstanding”
children’s homes, and reviewing whether it remains in children’s interests
to be in a placement if the rating of the service falls below this level.
4.
Planning for permanence
4.1
Statutory guidance on care planning for looked-after children makes it clear that, by
the time of the second review four months after a child becomes looked after, there
should be a clearly identified plan for achieving permanence for them. The
guidance lists four kinds of permanent arrangement:
a) Return to the child’s birth family, where it has been possible to address the
issues in family life which led to the child being looked after. At any one time,
about one in ten of our looked-after children have a plan for permanence based
on living with their birth family
b) Other forms of care outside the care system – which can include care by family
and friends, particularly where this can be supported by an appropriate court
order; adoption; or care by former foster carers supported by a court order. This
is the commonest plan for permanence. At any time:

About one in five looked-after children are expected to be adopted
3
The Northumberland proportion fell further to 5% in March 2015. No comparative national figure is yet
available.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 9

About one in eight are expected to remain with relatives or friends of their
birth parents, usually supported by a special guardianship order, or a child
arrangements order
c) Long-term foster care. This is the plan for permanence for three in eight lookedafter children.
d) For a small number of older children, residential care. Most of the children
currently living in residential care are there because of a decision that this is the
best way to achieve stability for them, following difficult childhood experiences.
4.2
At any one time, there is a small number of children for whom there is no current
plan for permanence, for instance because they have recently become looked after,
or have had recent difficulties in a placement expected to be permanent. It is a key
objective to minimise the time for which any child has no settled plan for
permanence.
4.3
In 2014-15, of the 104 Northumberland children who ceased to be looked after, 30
returned to their birth families, 21 were adopted, and 24 moved into permanence
supported by a child arrangements order (6), a Special Guardianship Order (SGO)
with former foster carers (8), or an SGO with others (12).
4.4
The number of children in Northumberland supported to live with a family other than
their birth parents through an SGO, or less commonly a child arrangements order4,
with associated financial support has increased markedly in recent years, and there
are now more than 300 children supported in this way. Greater use of SGOs and
child arrangement orders has largely put an end to the once-common situation
where children lived with their birth families in unstable situations, with frequent
“revolving door” short-term periods of being looked after by the Council.
4.5
National statistics monitor in particular the proportion of ceasing to be looked after
who have been adopted. Northumberland has had a higher proportion of children
achieving permanence through adoption in each of the past five years other than
2014, when the figures were affected by an unusually high number of children
ceasing to be looked after, associated with changes in the Council’s understanding
of the legal position about children living with family members other than their
parents. A renewed emphasis on adoption, even of the children for whom this is
most challenging, has recently led to a further increase in the number of children
adopted; in the 12 months to November 2015, 36 children were adopted, compared
to a previous annual level of around 20 in each year.
4.6
The Department for Education (DfE) published in December 2014 an “Adoption
Scorecard” for each local authority, measuring the speed with which children in each
area move through the key stages of adoption – reflecting national concern that this
process takes too long, and that this is bad for children. The statistics cover the
three year period from April 2011 to March 2014. They show a comparatively
positive picture for Northumberland. For children who were adopted, the average
time between children entering care and moving in with their adoptive family was
601 days in Northumberland, compared to 628 days across England, and the
4
Or the predecessor of child arrangements orders, a residence order.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 10
average time between the local authority obtaining a court order to place a child and
the authority deciding on a match to an adoptive family was 162 days in
Northumberland, compared to 217 days across England.
4.7
However both of these figures are longer than the targets set by the DfE, which
were 547 days and 152 days respectively – and DfE targets for the future are more
demanding still. Because these measures by their nature measure the effect of
arrangements years before the present, future assessments of the Council’s
performance will reflect a deterioration in timetables resulting from recent success in
placing some children with particularly complex needs after work which has taken a
considerable time. Steps taken now to accelerate the process will affect measures
of performance only after a number of years.
4.8
Long-term stability for children who do not move outside the looked-after system fell
below the previous high level as a result of the increasing pressure of numbers
between 2012 and 2014, as described in paragraph 2.10 above. We expect that the
position will improve now that the pressure on services has ceased to grow, but we
will need to monitor this closely.
4.9
Our key priorities for achieving permanence for looked-after children are:
● To increase the number of prospective adopters recruited by our family
placement service. Our target is a 20% increase by 2018.
● To review all processes involved in achieving court orders for children,
whether for adoption or other forms of permanence, to identify ways to
improve timeliness and ensure appropriate arrangements to achieve
permanence for each child.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 11
Appendix 1: Children’s Services – Strategic Planning
Northumberland County Council
Northumberland Families and Children’s
Trust
Corporate Plan 2014-18
Children’s and Young People Strategic
Statement 2015-18
Priorities:





Growing our local economy
Improving our places and
environment
Enabling families and
communities to be strong
Helping people to be healthy and
independent
Developing our organisation
Priorities:





A journey to independence
Bringing our communities together and
tackling child poverty
Developing ambition and enjoying life and
doing as well as possible
Being there to help and support when it
will have most impact
Promoting safeguarding and how to live
safely
Northumberland County Council Children’s Services
Key strategies:

Corporate Parenting

Commissioning

Early Help

Emotional Health
and Wellbeing

Northumberland County Council Children’s Services
Service Statement Priorities 2015-17












Develop early help services and increase the proportion of referrals which result in an Early Help
Assessment and Plan.
Reduce the caseloads of social workers and increase the proportion of experienced social
workers.
Ensure all front line staff are suitably skilled, experienced and supported to provide high quality
assessments, services and interventions.
Increase the number of foster carers and prospective adopters available to offer placements for
children and to reduce the proportion of looked after children in Independent Fostering Agency
placements.
Reduce the time scales for children who are being placed for adoption.
Continue to develop safeguards for children at risk of sexual exploitation.
Ensure that all LA residential children's homes are rated as at least Good.
Provide suitable accommodation for care leavers and other vulnerable young people.
Support educational and vocational opportunities for all looked after children and care leavers.
Implement a new performance framework and review impact on service improvement
Ensure learning from Serious Case Reviews, Ofsted inspections, peer reviews, service reviews
and other opportunities are maximised and improve services
Embed the new Supporting Families local outcomes plan within the children’s services workforce
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 12
Appendix 2 – Children’s Services Performance Framework
Measure
Outturn
Number of cases per full time equivalent social
worker
Number of cases per full time equivalent
independent reviewing officer
Target
2013/14
2014/15
2015/16
2016/17
N.A.
32
28
25
116
85
70
120
(Sept 14)
% of foster care children placed with
Northumberland County Council foster carers
60
65
82
85
Judgements of residential services: (% that
are Good/Outstanding)
100
75
80
100
% of C&YP in foster care where the quality of
care from their foster carers was judged
overall as good or outstanding
89
92
90
90
Children adopted over past 12 months:
average no. of days between a child entering
care and moving in with adoptive family
586
572
550
450
Children adopted over past 12 months:
average no. of days between court authority to
adopt and matching to adoptive family
194
218
185
160
Average duration of care proceedings ending
in the period (weeks)
37
35
26
26
% long term LAC in same placement for the
past 2 years
69
67
72
74
% referral decisions made within 1 day of
receiving referral
New internal
PI
92
99
99
% child protection plans (CPP) ending that
lasted 2 years or more
6
6.5
4
4
% children becoming subject to a CPP for a
2nd or subsequent time
10
6.8
10-15
10-15
% reduction in first time entrants to the Youth
Justice System aged 10-17
82.3
86.4
80
80
Rate of proven re-offending by young people
33.7
38.8
36.0
35.0
Rate of use of custody
0.07
0.14
0.20
0.20
% of Young Offenders engagement in suitable
education, employment or training (ETE)
86.8
81.4
80
80
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 13
Measure
Outturn
Target
2013/14
2014/15
2015/16
2016/17
96.5
97.1
97
97
% of care leavers living in suitable
accommodation
97
91
95
95
% of care leavers in employment, education or
training
53
46
55
60
Average no. of Early Help Assessments
initiated per month
34
71
110
130
No. of Supported Families (phase 2) identified
New PI
105
359
842
Total number of ‘supported’ families who NCC
has claimed for from April 2015 (2nd phase)
New PI
New PI
122
224
% of Young Offenders living in suitable
accommodation
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 14
Appendix 3: Profile of looked-after children
Figure 1 – Numbers of looked-after children, March 31st 2010 to 2015
Figure 2 – Numbers of children entering care by age group
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 15
Figure 3 – Numbers of children leaving care by age group
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 16
Figure 4 - Location of children who have become looked after and of foster carers in
Northumberland
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 17
Appendix 4: Options for permanence
Achieving permanence for children who are not looked after
While the Council’s permanence duty is focused on looked after children, planning to
ensure that children have long-term stablility needs also to include making the best use of
options for supporting children to remain at home, under a range of circumstances.
Staying at Home
The first stage within permanence planning is to work with children in need and their
families to support them and their families to stay together. Staying together offers the best
chance of stability. Research shows that keeping a family together has a higher success
rate than reunification. This option has to be balanced against the risk of harm to the child.
An Early Help offer should be made as outlined in Working Together guidance. In
Northumberland, Early Help assessments will be undertaken jointly with a lead
professional.
Parents and their children who accept an Early Help offer will work in partnership,
exploring the issues impacting on family life. They will work together to draw a plan of
action with clear roles and responsibilities, with review dates to ensure progress is been
made.
Exploring potential support services and considering direct work to enable parents and
children to function in a positive manner and foster positive long term relationships will
form part of the Early Help offer.
Throughout childhood there may be times when a family require early intervention support
or brief intervention; however the Permanence Plan for the child will continue to be to
remain at home.
Staying At Home Supported by the Local Authority
There are some families where following assessment, protection plans are put in place
and on occasions children have short stays with extended family or friends at the request
of parents.
One outcome may be that while the child can remain or return home there is a continued
need to support the child or children, for example, through a Supervision Order or
returning the child to home under an agreed and clear Child Protection plan or viewed as a
Child in Need ( CIN).
A Supervision Order places a child or young person under the supervision of the Local
Authority or a Probation Officer, who are required to advise, help and befriend the child.
This means for some children that they will be able to remain in the family home with
specific support. The Order can only be for one year in the first instance, but the
Supervisor can apply for this to be extended although it must not be for more than three
years in all, and not after the child is 18 years old. The Order can be stopped if any
interested parties apply to the Court and the Court agrees, or if a Care Order is made.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 18
Private Fostering Arrangements
There are occasions when for various reasons parents require support from friends, the
families of their children’s friends or alternative carers that may be identified within the
community to care for their children. This can be in the short term and or at times a long
term arrangement, in particular when the relationship between the parent and young
person has broken down. This is a private arrangement between both parties that has had
no involvement of children’s social care. This is known as a private fostering
arrangement.
Private Fostering is legally defined as an arrangement that occurs when a child who is
under 16 years of age (or 18 years for a child with learning difficulties and/or disabilities) is
cared for by someone other than their parent or a close relative for 28 consecutive days or
more.
A private foster carer may be a friend of the family or the child’s friend’s parents.
Occasionally they will be someone who is not previously known to the family, but who is
willing to foster the child through a private arrangement. An example of this is a child from
abroad staying with a host family in England.
The Children Act 1989 requires parents and private fostering arrangement carers to give
the local authority advance notice of a Private Fostering arrangement. It also places
specific duties on local authorities with responsibilities for children’s services. The Children
Act 2004 Section 44 placed a further duty on local authorities to promote public awareness
of the notification requirements.
For such arrangements to fall under the Private Fostering Arrangements parents have to
be in agreement with the identified placement and it has to be a placement that is going to
last 28 days or more. Parents and private fostering arrangement carers will enter into a
written agreement.
When assessments are being undertaken, consideration also has to be given to any
children living within the proposed household and all those children should be spoken to
with their wishes and feelings considered and any potential impact upon them.
The allocated social worker will carry out specific and appropriate assessments in relation
to the child and the private carer. Regular reviews of the placement and all assessments
will take place to ensure that the placement is in the best interest of the child and that the
child’s needs can be met long term.
Permanence planning for looked-after children
When children have become looked after, their care plan needs to set out how we will
achieve permanence for them, based on one of the following options.
Returning Home
For some children, returning home from being in care will provide the right permanent
solution and for these children good preparation and the proper support for them and their
family are vital. Research tells us that the longer a child is looked after by the local
authority, the less likelihood there is that the child will return home. We also know that the
success of any return home will depend upon a variety of issues including:

The degree of parental problems
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 19




The level of contact between child and parent(s) particularly within the first six
months of placement
Motivation of parents towards changes being made at home
Supportive substitute caregivers
The pressure for reunification
A good quality assessment of all the domains affecting the child’s care is central on which
to base the decision whether or not a return to the immediate family is the correct next
step to permanence for the child.
This means active work on addressing the issues which lead to the need for separation in
the first place must take place with both parents and children. This must be done while the
child is in the care of the local authority and that both parents and children must be
prepared for any return home because changes will have happened while the child has
been away from the family home. Support may need to be intensive and sustained to
enable the return home to be successful.
If the child is returning home on a Care Order then a full assessment will be required in
accordance with the Placement with Parent regulations.
Permanence Away from Home
Where the outcome of assessment or enquiries with a child and its family conclude that it
is not safe for a child to remain in or return to the family home and they are looked after,
Children’s Services need to consider alternative forms of permanence. This will ensure
that the child or young person has a safe and stable placement which provides for their
emotional well-being, protects them developmentally and supports them into adulthood.
A range of permanence options are available and should be considered. These include
long term fostering, permanent kinship care (connected persons), and Adoption. Once the
decision has been reached that a child or young person cannot remain or return to the
family home the decision about permanence will need to be given very careful
consideration and should be based on ensuring a safe, secure place to live which will
enable that child to benefit from a sense of permanence.
Placement with Connected Persons
Where the outcome of assessment or enquiries with a child and their family conclude that
it is not safe for a child to remain in the family home and they become looked after, every
effort must be made to secure placement with a Connected Person. It should be
considered as the preferred permanence option. If a return home is clearly assessed as
not in the child’s best interests it is very important to establish at an early stage which
relatives or friends might be available to care for the child, to avoid the delays. Undertaking
feasibility and Regulation 24 assessments are lengthy processes so it is important that
they commence as quickly as possible.
Joint placement of siblings should be strongly encouraged but not assumed as placement
together is not the only way to maintain sibling relationships. There may be circumstances
when seeking a sibling placement may impact negatively on the opportunity of one of the
siblings to achieve timely legal permanence. Where brothers and sisters are not placed
together arrangements should be made as part of each child or young person’s care plan
to enable the brothers and sister to have contact, providing this meets the assessed needs
of each child. It is important to assess the extent and quality of relationships in a sibling
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 20
group, whether they are already living together or not. Usually, and especially where there
is a pre-existing and meaningful relationship, it will be important to actively seek to
maintain sibling relationships within any permanence plan. No assumptions should be
made on sibling connection in isolation of other crucial factors, such as the chance to
achieve legal permanence, primarily through adoption but possibly through special
guardianship.
Contact must always be considered for the benefit of the child rather than the birth family
and other significant adults.
Permanent Foster Care
Permanent foster care is generally appropriate for older children and young people. This
option of permanence is particularly useful for children who have retained strong links to
their birth families and would not benefit from adoption.
Permanent fostering has continued advantages as a permanence plan as it can enable
continued support to the child and foster family in placement which is regularly reviewed to
ensure that the child’s needs are being met.
Sometimes for older children and for long term foster carers the application of an Order
whether Special Guardianship or Child Arrangement Order can give a sense of increased
permanence and gives the young person a further sense of belonging. It can reiterate the
commitment from the carer to the child and it also provides further a shared Parental
Responsibility.
Residential Care
For almost all children the best place for them to grow up is within a family structure.
However, for a very few children and young people their level of needs will mean that a
residential setting will best meet their assessed needs. Such settings must be able to
demonstrate sound pedagogy underpinning their practice, have staff that are trained,
supervised and supported well and that additional specialist support is available for staff
and the children in their care. Even if a child or young person cannot remain in a family
setting, maintaining the child’s links with their wider community for example, their extended
family, their school and leisure links, will be important in enabling the child to retain and
build positively on their place within their home community.
Legal Orders Supporting Permanence
Special Guardianship Orders
When the child or young person needs to live permanently away from their parents and the
carer would like to make major decisions on behalf of the child, but everyone agrees that
links with their birth parents should continue, then a Special Guardianship Order can be
applied for. This will restrict the birth parents rights and provide a sense of permanence for
the child but will not permanently end the relationship or connection to birth family. A foster
carer, with whom the child has lived for at least 1 year, can apply for a Special
Guardianship Order. An assessment will be undertaken that may lead to a Support Plan,
including consideration of any health, education and financial support that should be
considered in line with the council’s policy on allowances for carers.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 21
Child Arrangement Order
The granting of a Child Arrangement Order to someone automatically gives the carer
parental responsibility for the child they are looking after. Parental responsibility obtained
as a result of a Child Arrangement Order will continue until the order ceases. As with a
Special Guardianship Order the rights of birth parents are not removed but they are limited
as to how they exercise these. A Child Arrangement Order lasts until the child is 16 or 18
years if the circumstances of the case are exceptional and the court has ordered that it
continue for longer.
As with a Special Guardianship Order, a Child Arrangement Order will provide a sense of
permanence and removes the child from the care of the local authority. Financial
assistance may be given to those in whose favour a Child Arrangement Order has been
made, in the form of a set up grant; and in exceptional circumstances a weekly financial
discretionary allowance may be made in accordance with the Council’s policy on financial
support to carers.
Adoption
When the assessment has concluded that children cannot be returned to their birth or
extended family, research strongly supports adoption as the most successful way to
provide stability for children; especially for very young children. This does not mean that
adoption should not be actively considered for older children; however, it does mean that
the search for adoptive parents needs to be pro-active and resolute where adoption is
considered to be the right route to permanence for a child.
Where the plan for a child is adoption the local authority will need to apply for a Placement
Order during the care proceedings. The placement order will allow the council to plan for
and place a child in a pre adoptive placement. Once the child is settled and the council is
in agreement the adopters can then apply for an Adoption Order.
An Adoption Order transfers parental responsibility for the child from birth parents and
others who had parental responsibility, including the Local Authority, permanently and
solely to the adopter(s).
An Adoption Order is irrevocable and no future legal challenge is possible once it is made;
the child is a permanent family member of their adoptive family into adulthood.
Care Order
A care order allows the local authority to assume parental responsibility (PR) for a child,
along with the child’s parents, and to make key decisions affecting the life of the child. A
Care Order is appropriate where the local authority will need to exercise PR for a longer
period.
The Role of the IRO in Relation to Looked after Children and Permanence is to:
a.
b.
c.
To hold the welfare of the child as the paramount consideration
To ensure the voice of the child is heard clearly in the process
To subject the Local Authority care plan to critical scrutiny and to challenge the
Local Authority in relation to that care plan if necessary
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 22
The IRO has an important independent role in the governance of the local authority’s
implementation of the care plan and the decisions made at looked after children reviews.
By regulations the local authority is required to name the IRO on each child’s care plan,
give a copy of the care plan to the IRO and to inform the IRO of any significant failure to
make arrangements to implement decisions made at reviews and of any significant change
in circumstances occurring after the review that affects those arrangements.
The role of the IRO is critical to the independent scrutiny of the local authority’s actions
once a child becomes looked after. In particular the IRO has a responsibility to ensure that
looked after children have permanence plans and that they are being progressed in an
appropriate and timely manner. By this process there is intended to be scrutiny, due
process and change to care plans only where that has been approved within the regulated
process.
The Role of the Childs Social Worker in Relation to Looked after Children and
Permanence
This is a critical role. The Social Worker is responsible for developing and progressing the
child’s permanence plan. In developing it the Social Worker needs to consult with other
professionals, parents and other family members, specialists who are undertaking
assessments where appropriate, foster carers, the Family Placement Service, their line
manager and other relevant people. The Social Worker needs to consider whether a child
will be placed with siblings, contact arrangements, the support plan and what short term
arrangements need to be in place to support the achievement of the permanence plan.
The Role of the Family Placement Service (FPS) in Relation to Looked after Children
and Permanence
The service has a responsibility to advise the child’s Social Worker on the availability of
placements and to actively family find to maximise the options available to achieve
permanence. The service also needs to ensure that there is a sufficient pool of carers
available to provide short term placements which are of a quality which will support
children in moving to permanence and achieving good outcomes.
The service is critical in providing support, advice and guidance to carers and the Agency
Decision Maker to promote the highest standards of care to children to achieve secure
attachments to parental figures.
The Role of the Senior Manager Lead in Relation to Care Proceedings and
Permanence
The Senior Manager chairs the Public Law Outline Panel which is held weekly and
considers all cases which meet the threshold for a legal framework. The panel ensures
decisions made around legal thresholds are consistent for every child and young person.
The panel will offer advice, provide scrutiny and challenge plans in place whilst ensuring
the risk is effectively managed. The panel ensures work completed pre-proceedings is
timely, of good quality, meets need and is used in a preventative manner.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 23
The Panel will ensure all legal cases, either within proceedings or where a letter before
proceedings has been issued, are tracked and that progress is being made in the best
interests of the children and young people involved and that a clear plan of permanence is
secured at the earliest opportunity.
The Senior Manager also tracks all cases within proceedings working with Social
Worker’s, Team Managers and Local Authority Solicitors to ensure that unnecessary delay
is avoided.
Family Finding
The Family Placement Service continues to be developed. Whilst retaining much of the
role of the Child Permanence Worker the emphasis for the post holders is moving more to
identifying the needs of the child for permanence, identifying families and supporting the
child’s social worker in preparing the child, addressing outstanding needs and advising on
life story work. A manager within the service tracks all of the children to ensure progress
on realising the child’s permanence plan and to address any blocks to a successful
outcome.
We recognise that for a child to achieve permanence that once they are moved into a
placement that there will be a need for good quality support, ongoing life story work, in
some cases therapeutic support all of which underpins the development of firm and long
lasting attachments between the child and the parental figures within the placement. Only
once these are evident can we consider that permanence has been achieved for a child.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 24
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 25
Appendix 5: Governance and Accountability
In order to discharge its responsibilities the Council has the following arrangements in
place.
1.
Corporate Parenting Cabinet Advisory Group
1.1
This group meets bi-monthly and has the following Terms of Reference:1)
To maintain an overview of the ways in which the Council is discharging its
responsibilities as a "corporate parent" of the children who it looks after, both
while the Council has parental responsibility for them and afterwards.
2)
To consider and where necessary commission reports providing statistical and
other evidence about the arrangements being made for looked-after children,
the quality of the support being provided and the outcomes being achieved.
3)
To consider and where necessary commission evidence about the individual
experiences of looked after children, including anonymised case studies
covering a cross-section of the children for whom the Council is responsible.
4)
To consider reports about significant issues relating to looked-after children
which arise from court hearings, complaints, inspections and similar sources.
5)
To consider changes in legislation and guidance affecting looked-after
children.
6)
To report to the Cabinet on any issues about the Council's discharge of its
responsibilities as a corporate parent which the Group believes require its
attention.
2.
Northumberland Multi Agency Looked After Children Partnership.
2.2
This group meets quarterly and has the following Terms of Reference:1)
Purpose
The Partnership works together to achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes
for Northumberland’s looked after children and young people:





2)
being healthy
staying safe
enjoying and achieving
making a positive contribution
achieving economic well-being
Outcomes
The Strategic Group will:
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 26
 Ensure that all the relevant partners are involved in the MALAP arrangements
including appropriate representation on the sub-groups;
 Provide leadership in relation to the overall vision and strategic direction for
children and young people who are looked after.
 Make recommendations in relation to action plans of the various sub-groups
 Regularly monitor and evaluate targets of sub group and in relation to the
overarching function of MALAP
3)
Functions and roles
The MALAP Strategic Group will have both the role of setting the strategic direction
for the development of services for LAC as well as monitoring progress in service
development and performance.
The MALAP will:
 ensure broad representation from partner organisations at a sufficiently senior
level.
 ensure that the relevant links are in place to feed into other partnerships and
statutory bodies.
 monitor and review “Our Promise”, Northumberland’s “pledge” to looked after
children
 make recommendations to partner agencies and the FACT leadership team in
relation to the development of services for looked after children
 develop an annual Action Plan which will steer the work of the various subgroups
4)
Strategic Group Membership
Chair/Vice Chair
The Head of Service Director of Family Services will chair the meetings. The Vice
Chair (to deputise for the chair) will be identified from the membership annually
Role of Chair
The role of the Chair is to:
 lead the work of the partnership;
 ensure the business of the MALAP is conducted in an efficient and effective
manner;
 promote effective partnership working
 represent the partnership at the FACT leadership team.
Membership
The membership of the MALAP will comprise of representatives from organisations
who contribute to LAC and represent their service at Strategic MALAP.
Each sub-group must be represented on the strategic group, normally in the form of
the Chair Person
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Other members may be in attendance or co-opted as necessary at the discretion of
the Sub MALAP Chair Person.
Members will be selected by the organisation they represent within the Partnership.
5)
Measuring Success
The performance of the MALAP will be measured in terms of a number of national
performance indicators/targets and self assessments. Overall, its success will be
measured by:
 Improved outcomes for all children and young people who are Looked after by
Northumberland County Council; in all 5 Outcome areas
 Narrowing of the gap between all children and young people and those who are
Looked After.
 The active engagement of all partners in achieving positive outcomes for children
and young people who are Looked After.
 The active engagement of children, young people and parents/carers in the
planning and decision making process.
6)
Operational Matters
 The Group will meet quarterly.
 Members may appoint 1 or 2 named substitutes to attend meetings in their
unavoidable absence. Substitutes must be fully briefed and be able to exercise
the same levels of authority as the absent member;
 Secretarial support to the group will be provided by the County Council’s
Children’s Services Group.
3.
Fostering and Adoption Panels
3.1
Each of these panels has a councillor as a member. They play an important role in
contributing to the work of the panels and are also in a strong position to feed back
through the council and to the Executive Director on both broad issues and
individual children if necessary.
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 28
Delivery Plan for Corporate Parenting Strategy
Foster Care Improvement
1) Increase in-house foster
care capacity by 50 places
by 2018.
2) Ensure all IFAs providing
high quality placements.
Action(s)
i. Review care offer to foster
carers (fees, allowances and
support) to maximise capacity
of current and new carers.
Timescale
December 2016
ii. Secure agreement for Business
project Plan to further invest in
Family Placement Service. This
will allow a restructure and
additional posts to further the
work of the service.
March 2016
iii. Review Marketing Strategy in
short term and further review
once care offer agreed.
March 2016
i.
IFA Panel to continue to gatekeep and monitor outcomes of
placements.
December 2016
Ongoing
ii. All children in IFA placements
to be reviewed and where the
child’s best interests is served
by remaining long term in the
placement, this to be approved
by the ADM.
February 2016
iii. Where the Care Plan is for
children to move, the IFA Panel
and FPS will ensure that there
are quality plans to support the
movement of children.
March 2016
iv. IFA Panel will ensure that only
new placements are made to
IFAs where there is clear
evidence that this is in the
child’s best interests.
Ongoing
v. FPS will monitor outcome of
foster care reviews and
inspection outcomes of all IFA
placements.
Ongoing
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 29
Residential
Action(s)
1) Review outcome of
planned reduction in
capacity in Council’s
Children’s Homes
i.
Review completed and
outcome plan to develop
smaller community homes.
Business Case, Corporate
support, Consultation
excercise, Build Plan, Finance
and Contractor Programme to
complete 3 new homes in local
communities of Alnwick,
Cramlington, Bedlington. Home
Registration and staff/ young
person transfer plan completed.
Transfer of services completed
and decommission of Netherton
Park Plan realised June 2015.
Timescale
June 2013 – June
2015
ii. All homes rated as Good or
Outstanding over the transfer
18 month period.
2) Maintain good and
outstanding inspection
outcomes for all Children’s
Homes.
i.
Achieving Permanence
1) Increase the number of
prospective adopters by
20% by 2018.
2) Review processes for
planning for permanence
to improve timeliness and
ensure appropriate
arrangements to achieve
permanence for each
child.
Continue to develop and
implement improvement plans
in all Children’s Homes to
ensure good inspection
outcomes.
Action(s)
i.
Review Marketing Strategy
Ongoing
Timescale
March 2016
ii. Increase capacity to respond to
initial contacts and to undertake
assessments.
March 2016
i.
March 2016
June 2016
Pilot new module of ICS to then
roll out across all locality teams.
ii. Examine roles of child’s SW,
IRO and FPS in driving forward
The Council as a Corporate Parent  page 30
February 2016
Achieving Permanence
Action(s)
the plans for permanence.
iii. Undertake briefings with staff to
inform them of improved
arrangements for permanence
planning.
Timescale
April 2016
iv. Establish monitoring of cases
by ADMs to ensure timeliness
and appropriateness of
planning from the end of
proceedings to securing
permanence.
February 2016
v. Establish Agency Advisor post
in FPS to track, monitor and
prioritise cases to achieve
permanence for children.
June 2016
vi. Review arrangements for
connected persons placements
to ensure timeliness of
assessment and decision
making to secure children
where appropriate within their
extended families on a
permanent basis.
March 2016
This delivery plan identifies actions and timescales to ensure the priorities identified in the
Corporate Parenting Strategy are achieved.
Improvement to Permanence Planning and to the Family Placement Service is a work
stream within the Transformation programme for Children’s Services. There is a separate
Project Plan which underpins this delivery plan.
The delivery plan will be agreed and monitored through the MALAP and progress reported
to the Corporate parenting Cabinet Advisory Group.
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