What does the demise of Kids Company and BAAF teach us about charities delivering children's services?

What does the demise of Kids Company and BAAF teach us about charities delivering children's services?

Andy Elvin

If the statutory social care sector is to rely on charities to deliver services, lessons must be learned from the sudden closure of two important organisations

Father holding son's hand while walking

Adoption and fostering charity BAAF ran the adoption register for the government. Photograph: Angela Hampton Picture Library/Alamy

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Wednesday 12 August 2015 08.30 BST Last modified on Wednesday 12 August 2015 16.09 BST

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It has not been a good couple of weeks for the children’s charity sector.

The news of the sudden demise of both the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF) and Kids Company is unwelcome, and the manner in which both organisations closed is regrettable and requires further examination. It seems that BAAF was tipped over the edge by a combination of declining revenues and a significant pension liability.

How did Kids Company get so far away from those it was meant to help?

Peter Beresford

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For both BAAF and Kids Company, I hope that the Charity Commission looks at the role of governance. One of the main role of trustees is to manage resources; the manner in which both charities closed their doors raises questions about whether this duty has been discharged properly. Charities cannot help any children if they are bankrupt. It is vital for public, government and funder confidence that an investigation takes place and ensures lessons are learned by all charities. If the statutory sector is to rely on charities to discharge more of its responsibilities, it is essential that continuity of service is assured.

The implications for the sector are significant, especially in relation to BAAF.

BAAF was a respected and valued umbrella organisation that earned the trust of local authorities, charities and private companies. It was also trusted by central government and ran several important contracts, including the adoption register and the internal review mechanism. In England the Department for Education has allowed these to be handed over to Coram children’s charity without a competitive tender, or seemingly, any appreciation of the import of this.

The adoptions register role is self-explanatory, and will be taken over by First4Adoption, which is co-run by Coram and Adoption UK. The internal review mechanism (IRM), to be taken over by Coram Children’s Legal Centre, is a function which allows adopters or foster carers to seek an independent review of a decision that an adoption or fostering agency has made about them. This could be a refusal to approve them as adopters, a change in their fostering registration or de-registering them as foster carers. This applies to local authorities, charities and private fostering agencies. The process of the IRM reviewing a case requires the agency in question to supply confidential and commercially sensitive information to the panel.

BAAF was an umbrella body that provided services, expertise and support but was not an adoption or fostering provider. Therefore, it was not a direct competitor to the agencies whose work the IRM panels were adjudicating on. This is not the case with Coram. Other fostering and adoption agencies are now obliged to hand over sensitive data to a direct competitor. Additionally, any IRM cases involving Coram’s adoption service will be heard by another Coram charity.

The DfE line is that Coram Children’s Legal Centre is a separate charity to Coram adoption within the Coram “family” of charities . This is not a sufficiently robust argument for many agencies being asked to hand over proprietary information to a competitor .

This decision was concluded by the DfE without any consultation with the wider fostering and adoption sector. While continuity of service for the adoption register was important, the timetable for a competitive tender could have been clearly spelt out. A more obvious short-term home would have been the charity Adoption Link, which is not an adoption agency so the potential conflict of interest issue would not have been present. The IRM is not an emergency service, and could have been re-tendered and run by BAAF’s administrators in the meantime, especially if reports of an annual grant from the DfE of around £640,000 to run it are true. For agencies that in the past have had to pay £2,000 every time they were taken to the IRM to cover process costs, this seems a very high price for such a service.

With continued financial pressures we are going to see more charities experiencing difficulties. Where these charities are engaged in the delivery of statutory services, a wider consultation about the transfer of services could better ensure appropriate continuity of service and, possibly, fewer job losses.

Andy Elvin is chief executive of fostering and adoption charity Tact