Monday seemed to be a day of ceremony and public speaking.

We don’t always know everything so what is important is to understand when help is required and then ask in the experts. Our adoption agency provides a fantastic service but we are always seeking ways to improve the service. This is particularly true when dealing with something as important and complicated as adoption.

Coram provide expertise in the area of adoption, nationwide, which has given them significantly more experience of the adoption process than we have. We want to know how we can work with other agencies to improve the time it takes for an adoption in terms of both our process and the courts. It feels like it take too long at the moment. If we can help to make this process slicker it will help to reduce the time of uncertainty for those involved.

It was lovely to meet the top team of Coram and to sign the agreement on behalf of the council. It also gave me an opportunity to remind Coram and our officers that the success of this partnership will be judged on results not on signed agreements. I have great hopes for this.

Coram, which this year celebrates 40 years as a voluntary adoption agency, has a long-established reputation as a national centre of excellence for adoption and for sharing best practice with other organisations.

The main purpose of the new partnership with Cambridgeshire is to further improve decision-making and minimise delays in the adoption process. The ultimate aim is to give more children and young people in care in the region a secure and stable future with an adoptive family, long term foster carers or legal guardians.

Cambridgeshire has commissioned Coram to provide a manager who will not only be responsible for the county council’s adoption team, but who will also focus on improving practice across the system.