Regional Adoption Agency for Dorset

The Department for Education’s (DfE) ‘regionalising adoption programme’ is a national programme encouraging and supporting all local authorities in England to establish Regional Adoption Agencies (RAAs) that will deliver better outcomes and reduce costs.

To deliver better outcomes and reduce costs.

In 2015, 3 local authorities and a voluntary adoption agency within the Dorset region were successful in receiving funding from the Department for Education to develop proposals for the creation of a Regional Adoption Agency (RAA).

Professional project management was required to ensure the development of proposals to meet the DfE’s expected timetable within the available funding

Work on the Design phase of the project commenced in late 2015, however the local authorities quickly recognised that – while the relevant subject matter expertise was available – professional project management was required to ensure the development of proposals to meet the DfE’s expected timetable within the available funding envelope. Having already successfully managed project activities creating a pan agency Local Authority Trading Company (LATC) in the region, Julie Saunders was recruited by the local authorities to provide the project management skills and experience to ensure rigorous and realistic plans were in place to make this happen.

Business Change tools and techniques to manage the scope, time and cost of activities

Julie quickly put in place a robust project management framework and applied the necessary Business Change tools and techniques to manage the scope, time and cost of activities to develop and outline implementation proposals. Having successfully led the team to deliver and achieve approval of the proposals though a business case in early 2017, Julie then led and supported the team to achieve implementation of the RAA - known as Aspire Adoption - in July 2017.

This venture maintained a very high profile both within the region and throughout the country by using Julie’s Business Change and Project management skills and experience. Aspire Adoption is one of the very first regional adoption agencies in the UK, enhancing the reputation of each of the agencies and raising the profile of the Dorset partnership in central government and nationally.