FEWER children are being placed for adoption in Somerset since a new regional agency took over.

It has now been six months since Somerset County Council merged its adoption service with those of Devon, Plymouth and Torbay to form Adopt South West.

A senior Somerset officer admitted on Friday (April 26) that large numbers of staff had resigned as a result of the change, and highlighted “management issues” and an “us and them” culture between the councils.

The council’s director of children’s services has said these staff have returned to work for the authority in different roles.

Prior to October 2018, separate adoption agencies were run by Somerset County Council and its counterparts in Devon, Plymouth and Torbay.

Somerset’s services were judged to be ‘good’ by Ofsted over a three-year period prior to the reorganisation of how the service was delivered.

After October, these services were integrated into one regional adoption agency called Adopt South West, which is overseen from Devon County Council’s headquarters in Exeter.

The change was intended to speed up the process by which people could adopt a child – for instance, by allowing them to come before an adoption panel in Devon if one was not imminent in Somerset.

But Suzanne Lyus, the council’s operations manager for adoption, admitted the number of children being successfully placed for adoption had fallen in the last financial year.

She told the council’s children and families scrutiny committee on Friday morning (April 26) that staff resignations “have had a particular impact”, with the entire assessment team resigning after they were transferred over.

She said: “Smaller numbers of children have been adopted, been placed for adoption and been placed in fostering to adopt arrangements. There may be many reasons for this, and it needs further investigation.

“There’s been some management issues in the service which has left people very unhappy.

“There has been a little bit of a dip in performance in Somerset due to issues with capacity.”

She also admitted staff based in Exeter had been reluctant to travel out to the furthest away parts of Somerset, such as the Mendip district.

But Ms Lyus stressed that many of these challenges were being experienced by other, similar agencies elsewhere in the UK.

She said: “There is a good working relationship between us and Adopt South West. The regional adoption panel offers more timely approval for adopters.

“Other regional agencies are experiencing similar challenges, and the Department for Education is looking at how we can overcome these challenges.”

She added parents were “still getting the support they need” after the adoption process had been completed.

She said: “I’m confident that in Somerset we will put all the effort required in to make this work.”

Councillor Rod Williams said: “I’m slightly bothered that this ‘them and us’ feel continues.

“While no-one wants things to go wrong, if they do go wrong we need to be clear about how it should have worked and how it can be put right.”

Julian Wooster, the council’s director of children’s services, said the rules governing the agency were “very clear and precise”.

He also confirmed many of the staff which had left the service had since rejoined the county council in other roles within children’s services.

He said: “We will offer as much support as we can. The issue isn’t the funding, it’s the traction of staff.”

Councillor Frances Nicholson, cabinet member for children and families, said the culture needed to change “right through to an operational level” to ensure the best possible future for these children.

Councillor Peter Clayton, who regularly sits on adoption panels, said the amount of time it was taking to process requests for adoption was improving.

He said: “We still have two panels a month in Somerset. The paperwork is still the same as before, because we were largely doing it right anyway.

“There are targets now to meet time-scales – they are coming down, which is really good for the children. From a panel member’s perspective, it seems to be going well.”

An update on the service will come back before the committee in October.