The row highlights the pressure local authorities are under to plug theshortfall of 10,000 foster carers across the UK.
Conservative councillor Ivan Ould, lead member for children and youngpeople's services at Leicestershire County Council, hit out atPeterborough City Council for placing an advert for adopters in theLeicester Mercury.
The councillor was unavailable for comment last week. But the localnewspaper quotes him as saying: "It would worry me that other localauthorities are advertising in Leicester when we already have a problemgetting adopters. There is a limited group of people who are prepared tocarry out adoption. The reality is that we are already struggling tofind both potential adopters and those who are prepared to foster. Wecan't stop them advertising but, at the same time, it is going to reducethe number of people we have available to us."
But Flick Schofield, assistant director of children's social care forLeicestershire, denied there was a row and said the councillor hasmisrepresented the situation. "The lead member didn't talk to hisofficers, he was taking his initiative, if he had we'd have briefed himdifferently."
She added: "Peterborough has been recruiting in Leicestershire for sometime, which we have no problem with. In fact, our books are closed forAsian baby adopters so we are very happy for Peterborough to recruit inLeicester."
Paul Morley, publicity officer for Leicester City's fostering andadoption services, said: "It's a lot of fuss about nothing. This issomething that all local authorities do as we are all desperately shortof foster carers and adopters so we all advertise in other areas if weare seeking appropriate adopters, maybe because another city has adifferent cultural make up."
But he added: "It would have been polite for Peterborough to ring upbeforehand. If they had we could maybe have helped them more."
According to Sue Foster, fostering and adoption manager at PeterboroughCity Council: "Peterborough is quite a small unitary authority and it'scommon practice for us to look around to find adopters for children fromcertain ethnic groups that we can't meet locally."
The row comes amid news that the Association of London Government hasrecently received 25,000 from the London Centre of Excellence towork on pooling resources and partnership working to improve fosteringand adoption in the capital. Details are still being worked out, but itis likely the money will be used to develop area-wide agreements.
