Cameron warns councils over slow adoptions
As the prime minister outlines plans to shake up adoption, including publishing council league tables, an expert explains to Channel 4 News that the focus should be on the needs of the child.
Launching the Give a Child a Home campaign at the start of National Adoption Week, David Cameron said details such as local adoption rates will be made available so that people can challenge under-performing councils.
A green paper will be published shortly which will set out minimum standards for the number of adoptions and for what happens to children in the care system.
“We will publish data on how every local authority is performing to ensure they are working quickly enough to provide the safe and secure family environment every child deserves,” Mr Cameron said.
League tables
Adoption performance tables published on the Department for Education website and covering the three years from 2008 to 2010 put Hackney council at the bottom of a table listing the percentage of looked-after children being placed with adoptive parents.
Hackney placed 43 per cent of children with adoptive parents within 12 months of the decision to put them out for adoption. York council, at the top of the table, had a 100 per cent success rate.
Government adviser Martin Narey, the former chief executive of Barnardo’s, is said to be behind many of Mr Cameron’s recommendations. Mr Narey is working with local authorities to help them improve their adoption services.
“We need early identification of adoption – when it is clearly best for the child – and an administrative and legal system which completes the adoption much more quickly than at present,” Mr Narey said.
Thinking about children’s needs
Commenting on the performance tables, British Association for Adoption and Fostering Chief Executive David Holmes told Channel 4 News: “Fundamentally, it’s data about a large group of very vulnerable children. We need to look at that data and analyse it, but also bear in mind that at the end of the day it only tells us part of the story.
“Data collects the things that can be counted but doesn’t, for example, tell us about the quality of care individual children are receiving. The data raises questions that now need to be looked at carefully.
“The focus should be more on looking at this data and thinking about what it tells us about the needs of children, rather than focusing on naming and shaming exclusively.”
Overall, the average length of time for an adoption to take place is two years and seven months.
Figures released last month showed that only 60 babies were adopted in England last year. Commenting on the numbers, Children’s Minister Tim Loughton remarked: “It’s worrying that the number of adoptions has continued to decline, and it’s simply not good enough for vulnerable children to be waiting well over two years to be adopted.”
National Adoption Week helpline: 0800 652 9626