New adoption targets for councils

Adoption: some experts say it's not always the best option

The present law on adoption, passed 25 years ago, dates from a time when many of the children involved were infants being given up by single mothers.

Nowadays local councils are the main agencies trying to find adoptive homes for children that they have had to take into care.

These are often children "who have been neglected and abused", says the Chief Excecutive of BAAF Adoption and Fostering.

Difficult decisions have to be made about their lives by over-stretched social workers - sometimes to take them away from deprived families, who just cannot cope.

Best option?

Many experts in the field do not agree that adoption is always a better choice for these children, rather than giving more support to their birth families.

But this government has chosen to build a new system to help children that the former Chair of the Commons Health Committee, David Hinchliffe, describes as "locked up" in the care system.

The pattern of adoption services across the country is another lottery. In some authorities, only 1% of children in care are offered for adoption, in others up to 20%.

It depends on councils' resources, and whether they have been able to find enough new parents.

If councils have to look to other areas, or to voluntary agencies, to find parents, it can cost them as much as £15000 in what is called "Interagency Fees".

It is often cheaper therefore to keep them in care.

Register

With its new bill, the government is setting up a new National Adoption Register of children and parents. It has drafted new Adoption Standards.

But the Director of the campaigning Adoption Forum, Liv O'Hanlon, complains that the government has not talked about money at all.

It has not promised funds to finance under-performing councils, who will still have to pay thousands for introduction to new parents.

And the President of the Association of Directors of Social Service, Moira Gibb, says setting new targets is hardly realistic, at a time when 85% of social service departments are already over-budget.

She also wonders how soon they could possible meet the government's target of a 50% increase in the number of adoptions, when last year the courts sent over 20,000 more children into care.