Perth & Kinross Adoption Service Praised In Report

PERTH and Kinross Council’s fostering and adoption services have been praised by the Care Commission following a recent inspection.

The Commission carried out its third annual inspection of fostering and adoption in September, 2008, and assessed a range of aspects of these services.

Inspectors considered that the quality of care and support provided was very good.

However, the local authority has been left with five areas in need of improvement.

Highlighted among the strengths in this area were good participation by carers, robust systems to ensure service users’ health and well-being, and arrangements by the service to obtain the views of looked after children and young people.

The quality of staffing was graded as good. Inspectors, in particular, praised the range of opportunities for carers and children to comment on the service they received.

They also noted that staff were well-trained and motivated, had good awareness of the national code of conduct for social services and the responsibilities it places on officers.

The Care Commission also examined how the council ensured service users and carers were involved in assessing and improving the quality of management and leadership of the service and the processes and systems used to achieve that.

Inspectors gave an overall grade of just adequate for this area and recommended improvements to the way information from consultation with service users and carers is used to plan the care and support the council provides.

At the time of the most recent visit, inspectors praised the user-friendliness of the complaints procedure and noted that the requirements had been partially met.

However, PKC is required to provide a written complaints procedure to all service users. A point which the local authority had 12 weeks to implement.

The report also reflects that these areas for improvement have now been fully addressed.

Lifelong Learning convener, Councillor Liz Grant, said yesterday: “The Care Commission’s recent inspection highlights the good practice and strengths of our fostering and adoption services.

“We have dedicated staff who are clearly focussed on supporting looked after children and young people and improving our services with input from them and their carers.

“I welcome the progress made to date on the Commission’s requirements and a report to the Lifelong Learning Committee on Wednesday sets out our commitment to make further improvement.”