Agenda item

The Committee had before it a report by the Chief Internal Auditor which presented an audit on Adoption, Fostering and Kinship which was undertaken to obtain assurance that adequate procedures were in place to control the calculation, award, and payment of allowances for Fostering, Adoption and Kinship Care.

The report recommended:-

that the Committee review, discuss and comment on the issues raised within this report and the attached appendix.

In response to a question regarding whether using the D365 system for all payments would make a difference due to the complexities of the system, the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that the system was designed to be agile and responsive to changing needs with an element of Social Work related data and a financial system attached for making payments.  He further advised that consideration was being given to moving kinship and adoption payments to the same system.

In response to a question regarding the controls in place to prevent over payments, the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that for each child within foster care, an invoice was received which was checked manually to ensure they were accurate.  He further advised that there were quarterly meetings with fostering agencies. 

In response to a question regarding further verification from adopters and what this entailed, the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that the adopters were asked to submit a school record to show the child lived at the same address as the adopter.

In response to a question regarding how often the service were reviewing procedures, the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that they were working to implement the audit recommendations and the Adoption Scheme would be presented to Committee in September with reviews continuing on an ongoing basis.  He further advised that allowances were reviewed on an annual basis as part of the budget process.

In response to a question regarding whether the management responses would fully meet the recommendations for the adoption allowance, the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that a report would be submitted to committee on Adoption Allowance and that the system required to be adaptive to the needs of the child as these may not be known at the time of adoption, meaning that adopters may request at a later date for an allowance to support the child.

In response to a question regarding whether consideration would be given to delegate authority for approving payments, Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support advised that sub-delegation would be considered to improve the process.

The Committee resolved:-

(i)       to note that the Chief Officer – Children’s Social Work and Family Support would provide a report to this committee in September setting out the timeline for the development of D365 to enable the payment of allowances to kinship carers, adopters and external foster carers; and

(ii)      to otherwise note the report and the attached internal audit report.