ions for adoption and fostering make no particular provision for ‘adoption and permanence’ panels. The following is intended to assist where the agency is considering constituting such a panel. If the agency decides to do so, it will need to ensure that the adoption and permanence panel complies with the requirements of the AAR and the Fostering Services Regulations 2011. 1.23. Under the Fostering Services Regulations, a fostering panel is required to consider and make a recommendation on the suitability of a person to be a foster carer. There is no requirement for the panel to consider and recommend on either the foster plan for a child or a foster match and placement. However, given the significance of long-term fostering many agencies constitute adoption and permanence panels, which combine knowledge and experience of adoption and fostering and enable these two permanence options to be considered by one panel. 1.24. Although it may be clear that a child needs permanence in a new family, the options for achieving this need careful scrutiny and for some children it may be very difficult to find a permanent new family. An adoption and permanence panel would be well placed to consider adoption or long-term foster care. It may recommend that the child should be placed for adoption or, if it considers that adoption would not best meet the child’s needs, it could advise that the child should be placed into long-term foster care. This reduces the time needed to identify the type of placement that is most likely to meet the child’s needs by avoiding consideration of adoption or fostering at separate panel meetings. 20 Frequency of panel meetings 1.25. Adoption panels must not be the “bottleneck” in the decision-making process. They must meet frequently and be able to meet at 