Do LA look to other LA's if they can't find a match within their LA?

[NV42]

When I went to a LA information event they said that if they do not find a match for you in the pool of children they have they will look to other LA's.

Can anyone who used LA confirm this and if yes, how long did you have to wait until they reach out to other LA's to find a match for you?

Your own LA will continue looking for and would favour a match in house. After a set amount of time (usually 2-3 months but some are earlier or later) if they haven’t matched you yet, you should be allowed access to Linkmaker, a website which has information on children from all over the UK who need adopting and adopters who are looking for a match. Prospective Adopter’s can look at children from all different LAs and express interest, and SWs from all over can look at your profile and express interest in you.

Some LAs are also part of a consortium with other nearby LAs where they share their pool of adopters/children with each other so you could be matched there.

Yes they do but it costs the childs LA over 15k to have them placed outside the LA. For this reason they try hard to match children and adopters in the same LA.

Our LA do not place within the LA area except in exceptional circumstances, they were very open about that from the start. They are now part of a regional agency and all participating authorities tend to place within the region but not their LA.