New National Target To Speed Up Adoption Process Published date: 21 December 2001 A new national adoption target to speed up the adoption process was announced by Health Minister Jacqui Smith today - marking the first anniversary of the publication of the White Paper'Adoption - a new approach'. The Government has set a new Public Service Agreement (PSA) target that by 31 March 2005 at least 95% of looked after children who are waiting for adoption should be placed within 12 months of the decision that adoption is in their best interests. This is an increase of 14% on current performance levels. This measure is part of the Government's drive to improve adoption services to ensure that the needs of children are placed at the heart of the adoption process, and to reduce the time it takes for children to find new families. Jacqui Smith said: For many children in care, adoption offers the best chance of success in life. We are committed to modernising the adoption process, to make it faster and fairer, and to help transform the lives of hundreds of children. "Our new national target means that more children who need new families, will be living with them within a year. It is a challenging and ambitious target - but one that is achievable. We are clear that this target must not be met at the cost of quality and children must not be rushed into adoptive placements before they are ready. The target makes it plain that current levels of placement stability must be maintained." Finding the right new family is key to making sure the needs of children are put at the heart of the adoption process. This new target is just one part of a package of measures we have delivered since the Adoption White Paper was published a year ago. Since last December, we have consulted on and finalised new National Adoption Standards, developed supporting draft Practice Guidance for consultation, launched the Adoption Register for England and Wales in August and, most recently, issued a new Adopter Recruitment Toolkit to support adoption agencies in their efforts to attract the extra adopters needed. "Throughout the year, the Adoption and Permanence Taskforce has been working intensively with selected councils to improve their adoption service and to identify and spread best practice. The Adoption and Children Bill is also currently being debated in Parliament. This demonstrates again our commitment to improving the adoption process." The Department of Health has also issued a consultation document on a proposal to monitor adoption breakdowns after the making of an adoption order. The consultation period ends on 2 April 2002. Notes to Editors: 1. The new national target forms part of the Department of Health's Public Service Agreement which is that: "Maximising the contribution adoption can make to providing permanent families for children without compromising on quality, so maintaining current levels of adoptive placement stability. Specifically, by bringing councils' practice up to the level of the best, by 2004-05: to increase by 40% the number of looked after children who are adopted, and aim to exceed this by achieving, if possible, a 50% increase, up from 2700 in 1999-00; to increase to 95% the proportion of looked after children placed for adoption within 12 months of the decision that adoption is in the child's best interests, up from 81% in 2000-01." 2. The Department of Health will monitor performance of individual councils through the PSS Performance Assessment Framework (PAF), and will keep these indicators under review. 3. The circular issued today (LAC(2001)33) sets out details of the new target, the implementation timetable for the National Adoption Standards, information on the Adopter Recruitment Toolkit and the consultation document on estimating rates of adoption break downs post-adoption order. 4. The Adoption and Children Bill follows the"Adoption - a new approach"White Paper which was published on 21 December 2000. The Adoption and Permanence Taskforce was launched in October 2000. Chaired by the Chief Inspector of Social Services, the Taskforce's 31 members are drawn from experts in the field of adoption. The Taskforce initially worked with 8 councils (Barnet, Coventry, Lambeth, Newham, Northamptonshire, Peterborough, Slough and Torbay) and has developed 3 tools to help councils more widely in their adoption work, namely Children Waiting and Care Planning, Adoption Support and Tracking Children. The Taskforce's second wave of 12 councils (Blackburn with Darwen, Cambridgeshire, Dorset, Halton, Hammersmith & Fulham, Manchester, Merton, Redcar & Cleveland, Sheffield, Southend-on-Sea, Stockport and Wigan) was announced in October this year. 5. On 7 August 2001, the first National Adoption Standards were published, together with draft Practice Guidance to support the Standards. The Standards have been written to ensure that children, adopters, birth families and the general public understand what they can expect from the adoption service and so that everybody receives a fair and equal service wherever they live. The Adoption Register for England and Wales was also launched on 7 August 2001. The Register will link people approved to adopt with children needing new families, and so help to cut out unnecessary delay. 6. Copies of the White Paper, Adoption and Children Bill, National Adoption Standards, draft Practice Guidance, LAC(2001)33 and the new Adopter Recruitment Toolkit are available from the Department of Health's comprehensive website - www.doh.gov.uk/adoption. Information about adoption procedures, adoption legislation, guidance, international conventions, useful addresses and statistics are also available from this website. 7. Non-media enquiries about the circular should be made to: Adoption and Permanence Team (LAC(2001) 33) Room 105 Wellington House 133-155 Waterloo Road London SE1 8UG Fax: 020 7972 4179 Email: dhmail@doh.gsi.gov.uk Please quote Adoption LAC(2001)33 in the subject box 8. Comments on the consultation document should be sent by 5 March 2 April 2002 to:Children Looked After Team Statistics Division 3A Department of Health Room 451C Skipton House 80 London Road London SE1 6LHFax: 020 7972 5660 Email: MB-Adoption-Consultation@doh.gsi.gov.uk 9. Non-media copies of LAC(2001)33 can be obtained from: Department of Health PO Box 777 London SE1 6XH Tel: 08701 555 455 Fax: 01623 724 524 Email: doh@prolog.uk.com 10. Approximately 58,000 children are looked after by councils in England at anyone time. The average length of time spent in care prior to adoption in 2000/2001 was 2 years 9 months, down from 3 years 4 months in 1996/1997. 11. 3,067 children were adopted from care in England during 2000/2001. This is 12% more than in the previous year, and over 40% more than in 1998/1999. 12. Further media ONLY enquiries to the Department of Health Media Centre on 0207 210 5315. Contact: Press officer Address: Media Centre, Department of Health Richmond House, 79 Whitehall London SW1A 2NL Phone: Media Centre 020 7210 5221 Additional linksTravelling? EHIC & Information for travellers Children taken from parents and adopted ‘to meet ministry targets’Frances Gibb, Legal Editor Record numbers of young children are being taken from their parents and adopted - sometimes unjustly - to meet government targets, it is claimed today. Each year some 1,300 babies under a month old are placed in care before adoption, compared with 500 when the Government came to power, BBC Radio 4’s Face the Facts claims today. The programme is told that there are now more than 100 cases of possible miscarriages of justice in which children have been forcibly or unjustly adopted. It says that the number of parents in England who have lost their children, despite insufficient evidence that they were causing them harm, has reached record levels. Related Links Babies taken into care ‘to meet targets for adoption’ The rank hypocrisy of family court judges One reason, according to social workers, is that they are under pressure to meet government adoption targets – in line with ministers’ policy for more children in care to be adopted. At the same time, it is claimed, parents are not always given a proper chance to challenge adoptions because of the short time limit for appeals and the secrecy of the family courts. Lawyers say that hearings in private fuel parents’ sense of injustice and can in some cases breed bad practice, preventing them from properly defending themselves. Sarah Harman, a family law solicitor, said: “Secrecy breeds bad practice, it breeds suspicion. It feeds parents’ sense of injustice when they have their children removed that they’re not able to talk about it. They’re not able to air their grievances. Children have been removed from their families unjustly. There’s no two ways about that.” A social work manager with 25 years’ experience in child protection added that parents had little chance of getting a hearing and overturning a decision made by the authorities. The manager told the BBC: “People will find that their children have been removed and freed for adoption without them having had a proper chance to defend themselves and their families and their children.” MPs have also spoken out against the unfair adoption system and are campaigning for a public inquiry. John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat member for Birmingham Yardley, who is also chairman of the Justice for Families group, said: “We are seeing perhaps three to four new cases being referred to us every day.” The programme hears from one mother who claims she was actually giving birth when the authorities arrived to remove her baby, and from a father who had his two sons unjustly adopted. He later received a written apology from the local authority but, because his children had already been adopted, he will never get them back. The Department for Children, Schools and Families denied that there was a target for taking children from their birth parents to meet overall adoption targets. A spokesman said that government policy had always been that children should live with their parents wherever possible and, if necessary, families should be given extra support to stay together. He said that there had been a national target to increase the number of “looked-after children” being adopted and to place children for adoption more quickly. But he added that this was only if they had already been assessed as suitable for adoption and after it had been decided that adoption was in the child’s best interests. Local authorities might set themselves targets to place children for adoption more quickly after that course had been decided on, he said. He added: “It is for a court to decide whether or not to make a placement or an adoption order on the basis of the welfare of the child.” By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 2:05am GMT 27/01/2007 Up to 1,000 children a year are being removed from their parents so councils can meet adoption targets, an MP has claimed. John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat, alleged that a rise in the number of young children being taken into care in England and Wales was linked to pressure on councils to increase their adoption rates. In a Commons motion, which has cross-party support from about a dozen MPs, he said it was a "national scandal" and warned of "increasing numbers of babies being taken into care, not for the safety of the infant, but because they are easy to get adopted". advertisement The accusation was denied last night by the Department for Education and the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). The department said it was "ridiculous" to suggest it was increasing the pool of children in care to meet adoption targets. David Holmes, the chief executive of BAAF, said: "Social services do not take children into care to unnecessarily be adopted. It is dangerous to suggest that this is happening." But Mr Hemming, the MP for Birmingham Yardley, said: "I have got statistical evidence and case work. It is quite a widespread practice." He added: "I estimate there are 500-1,000 cases a year where the child should stay with its parents and is being taken away. . . It is sick and should be stopped" In 2000, ministers set a target of a 50 per cent increase in the number of children in local authority being adopted by March 2006. The latest available figures, show that the number of "looked after" children being adopted rose from 2,700 in 2000 to 3,700 in 2004, an increase of 37.7 per cent. The largest rise was in the one to four-year-old age range.