By Richard Johnstone | 11 June 2013
Councils have warned that the government’s threat to remove local authorities from the process of recruiting and assessing potential child adopters could jeopardise recent improvements to the system.
In a briefing for MPs ahead of a Commons debate today on the Children and Families Bill, the Local Government Association said the ‘draconian’ measure would reduce the chances of finding homes for children.
The Department for Education is seeking to fill the shortage of adoptive parents, currently estimated at 3,000.
Under the Bill, councils unable to attract sufficient adoptive parents could have the recruitment and assessment process taken from them and outsourced to a voluntary adoption agency.
However, the LGA said this change would put at risk recent improvements to the adoption system, which have doubled the number of children placed with adoptive parents in the past year.
In the briefing, produced with children’s charity Barnardo’s, the LGA said removing councils from the initial stage of the adoption process would create ‘uncertainty’. It urged MPs to vote against the powers.
The document said ministers should hold off on further changes until other recent reforms, such as the creation of an Adoption Gateway, have had an impact. This would work alongside local government’s own plan for improvement, the chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, David Simmonds, said.
‘We need to change the unacceptable fact there are too many children in care waiting for loving homes and too few adopters coming forward,’ he said. ‘Significant improvements are already being made which led to the number of children being placed with adoptive mums and dads last year almost doubling.
‘Removing councils from the process of recruiting adopters at this crucial time would be a reckless gamble that risks jeopardising the significant progress being made.’
Only a minority of adopters are currently recruited by voluntary agencies, he added, while councils recruit 80%.
Puja Darbari, Barnardo’s UK strategy director, said that while voluntary agencies played a vital role in finding adoptive parents, any blanket move to exclude councils from the process would be ‘deeply worrying’.
‘The best way to increase numbers of adoptive parents would be to remove clause three from the Children and Families Bill, enabling voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities to continue to work in tandem with each other, not in competition,’ she added.
