In children’s social care, it is important to ensure that there are no unnecessary delays to placing children with suitable adoptive families. Once a plan of adoption is approved for a child there are several activities that will happen along the way to securing an adoptive placement for that child. The organisation that has the case holding responsibility for a child in care is the one that employs the social worker who is allocated to act as the primary person responsible for ensuring the child’s safety and wellbeing. In most cases, where case holding responsibility remains with a local authority (LA). However, there are some LAs that have delegated case holding responsibility to their RAA for children with an approved adoption plan or a placement order (PO). Adoption England commissioned Coram-i to undertake research exploring case holding responsibility practice in Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) in England. The research sought to gain a better understanding of the benefits and drawbacks of the different arrangements.
