It was great to welcome Tim Loughton, Minister for Children, to see what could be learnt from our transformed adoption services. Key to our briliant service has been the partnership with Coram – a national children’s charity and specialist voluntary adoption service. Coram bring national expertise which has helped improve our decision making resulting in fewer delays in the adoption service.

The Minister and I met with some looked after children who gave an extremely good account of themselves. What amazed me was the level of insight these young people had, prticularly when they had been in trouble.

I was able to signal to the Minister that we would welcome working, for a trial, with the courts to see where the whole process could be made even more efficient.

It was really helpful to meet with parents who had adopted to hear about their experiences and how we can improve. I was also able to let the Minister know that, despite a very low tax base in Cambridgeshire, we had excellent staff providing a great service. He recognised that it is really good to work with an authority that is striving to improve even though we do a wonderful job already.

I picked up some areas we can improve, mainly in the area of communicatin with potential adopting parents.