chapter two: problems in adoption

This chapter sets out:

•    the background to this White Paper;

•    the problems in the current system for children looked after by councils; and

•    the problems in the adoption system.

Children looked after by councils

2.1    Fifty-eight thousand children are now looked after at any one time by councils in England². Over the course of a year councils accept responsibility for over 90,000 children³. These children are looked after by councils for a wide variety of reasons ­ some to provide family support through voluntary agreements with their parents, others are looked after under court orders. For many thousands of children every year the care system, through fostering, residential and respite care, provides the support and help they and their families need to sort out their problems and rebuild their family life. Many spend only a short time in the care of a council. Nearly 40% return home after less than eight weeks and more than half will have gone home within six months. Seventy per cent of all children who start being looked after return home within a year⁴.

Children who stay in the care system

2.2    But there are many children who stay longer. Some of them never return home to their parents. Over 28,000 of the children looked after in the year to 31^st March 1999 had been in care continuously for more than two years ­ about half of all those in care at any one time⁵. Nearly 12,000 had been looked after for five years or more⁶. By the time a child has been looked after for 18 months they have an 80% chance of remaining in care for four years or more (and probably right through until they leave the system at age 16­18)⁷.

2.3    For too many children the care system does not provide the chance for a long-term family life in which they can thrive:

•    some 18% of looked after children experience three or more placements in the course
of a year⁸;

•    an estimated 14% of children who are adopted have experienced six or more placements in their care history⁹;

•    only 46% of children looked after continuously for more than four years have spent at least the last two years in the same foster placement¹⁰;

2.4    Many of these children have led fractured and disrupted lives before coming into care. Many have mental health problems and special educational needs. 67% of looked after children have an identifiable mental health problem. An estimated 30% of looked after children have statements of special educational need, compared with 2­3% of children generally¹². The results, when combined with the instability they can experience in care, are reflected in low opportunities while they are looked after and in poor chances for successful settled lives when they leave:

•    70% of young people leave care without having gained any GCSE or GNVQ qualifications¹³;

•    25% of looked after children aged 14­16 do not attend school regularly and many have been excluded and have no regular educational placement¹⁴;

•    between 14% and 25% of young women leaving care are either pregnant or have a child, while in the general population only 3% of 20 year old women have a child¹⁵;

•    compared to the general population, those who have been looked after are 60 times more likely to be homeless¹⁶;

•    39% of male prisoners under 21 have been looked after¹⁷.

2.5    There are widespread concerns about whether the best use is being made of adoption to meet the needs of those looked after children requiring permanent homes with new families:

•    there is wide variation in the use of adoption by councils, which cannot be explained solely by the characteristics of the children looked after by the council. In 1999­2000 the proportion of looked after children adopted during the year varied by council between 0.5% and 10.5%¹⁸;

•    inspections and surveys by the Social Services Inspectorate have identified concerns about the planning and management of council adoption services, and the way these services work with other services, including health and education;

•    there is a widespread perception that the adoption process is prone to delay to the detriment of the child;

•    there are concerns over the consistency, quality, clarity and speed of the process of applying to become an approved adopter.

2.6    This is why, in February 2000, the Prime Minister announced that he would personally lead a thorough review of adoption policy, to ensure that the best use was being made of adoption.

The Prime Minister's Adoption Review

2.7    As the first stage of his review, the Prime Minister commissioned the Performance and Innovation Unit (PIU) in the Cabinet Office to study the evidence, explore the options for action and make recommendations for Government policy. The PIU published their report for consultation on 7^th July 2000.

2.8    The PIU report identified three key problems which meant the needs of looked after children are not consistently being met:

•    decisions about how to provide a secure, stable and permanent placement, including adoption, are not addressed early enough, focused clearly enough or taken swiftly enough

–    For looked after children adopted in 1998­99, the average time spent looked after before the decision was made that adoption was in the child's best interests was one year four months¹⁹;

–    62% of those adopted in 1998­99 started to be looked after under the age of 12 months, but only 36% were still infants under one when the decision was made that adoption was in their best interests²⁰;

–    65% of children adopted wait over a year between coming into care and being placed with their prospective adoptive family (see Table 1)²¹.

•    where plans for permanent placements, including adoption, are made, they are not delivered quickly enough, from the point of view of the child's timescales

–    The average time between decision and placement is seven months, which varies by age from five months for children under one month old (when they started to be looked after) to 11 months for children over five years²³;

–    Children wait on average nearly three years from becoming continuously looked after to being adopted²⁴;

–    Older children take longer to match and place and wait longer once they have been placed before they are adopted²⁵.

•    services do not provide the support families need throughout the process of securing and supporting adoption and permanence

–    Adopters report that post-adoption support was the least satisfactory part of the adoption process²⁶;

–    There is a lack of consistency between councils on the support that is available to adoptive families after placement²⁷;

–    18% of adoptive placements broke down during 1999­2000 before an adoption order was made²⁸.

2.9    The report's key findings were:

•    too often the current system was not delivering the best for looked after children in terms of finding them long-term placements generally or adoptive families in particular;

•    there was scope for a substantial increase in the use of adoption as an option for looked after children.

2.10    The report also identified a wide range of problems and barriers throughout the system that contributed to these key problems.

Legal issues

2.11    There is a lack of consistency in the law. The Adoption Act 1976 and the Children Act 1989 are not consistent in their approach. Different approaches must be taken depending on the type of application. In some cases the needs of the children will be paramount and in others they will be taken into account.

2.12    Currently, the options available to provide permanence for looked after children are limited. Only adoption provides legal permanence, but it requires absolute severance of legal ties with birth families. Long-term fostering and residence orders do not sever the ties with birth families. But such placements are not necessarily as legally secure, as they can be ended either by councils or by birth parents through the courts.

2.13    For adopted people wishing to find out about their family history, access to information is inconsistent across the country.

Social worker training and experience

2.14    Social workers often receive little or no training in working with children generally, or in making decisions for permanence for children. At the moment, the basic social work course does not properly equip social workers to deal with these issues.

Recruiting and supporting adopters

2.15    People may be put off from applying to adopt by their perception of the assessment process as long-drawn-out and over-intrusive, or having arbitrary criteria for approval. This may contribute to the shortage of adopters across the country, which means that children wait too long for new families to be found for them.

2.16    Although the PIU report found little evidence of agencies using arbitrary criteria for assessment, if these are used, children are the losers. There have been cases where potential adopters have been told they cannot adopt solely because they are too old or because they smoke. Blanket bans of this kind are unjust and unacceptable. Each case should be judged on its merits and the needs of children considered ­ the important thing is to ensure that adopters can offer children a safe, stable and loving home through childhood and beyond.

2.17    The review mechanism for the assessment process may seem unfair, and not impartial or independent. It provides for people to make representations to the adoption panel that recommended their application be rejected, and for that adoption panel to reconsider their recommendation in the light of the further representations.

2.18    There is very little support available for adopters once a child has been placed for adoption. Currently, as many as one in five adoptive placements breaks down before the child is legally adopted²⁹. These children have already gone through at least one family breakdown, so another can be extremely traumatic. The current duty on local social services authorities to provide post-adoption support, set out in the Adoption Act 1976, is framed in very general terms, and provision is patchy. There are particular difficulties in obtaining support where a child has been placed with a new family who live outside the council's area. There is also difficulty in getting access to services ­ those seeking help tend to be directed through the social services 'duty system', which is designed to deal with crises.

2.19    Adoption allowances were originally designed to facilitate an adoption when it would not otherwise take place. They were aimed specifically at encouraging the adoption of large sibling groups, and disabled children. But the PIU report found widespread inconsistency in their use, and a general lack of clarity around their purpose, which has led to inconsistency in their treatment in the tax and benefits systems.

The contribution of councils

2.20    The organisation of social services departments means that the same team may often be dealing with child protection issues and with finding permanent new families for children. Children in foster care are seen as 'safe', and finding new families may therefore become a lower priority than supporting children at risk.

2.21    There is evidence that some councils have better management of the adoption process than others, and that this strong leadership can improve performance.

2.22    Adoption services have traditionally been run on a local basis. Each council has recruited its own adopters to meet the needs of the children it is looking after. This can mean that children are kept waiting for a local family, when there may be a suitable family waiting to adopt in another part of the country. A 1999 report to the Department of Health found 2,400 children waiting to be adopted, and 1,300 approved adopters waiting for children³⁰.

The court system

2.23    Courts may, for a variety of reasons, insist on further work being undertaken before a decision can be made. This is sometimes the result of poor relationships between council and court staff, especially between council social workers and guardians ad litem and is exacerbated by the lack of training of some social workers. If there is a difference of opinion, the courts are more likely to follow the view of the guardian.

2.24    There are also delays in the court process generally, in both the proceedings that consider the Care Plan for every looked after child and in adoption proceedings specifically. This is not helped by a lack of active judicial management in many cases.

2.25    There may also be duplication of effort, for example, assessments undertaken for care proceedings being made again for subsequent adoption proceedings. There is also inconsistency of practice across the country.

2.26    At present the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is able only to publish limited annual statistics on adoption such as the number of adoptions made and basic information about the children involved. This does not provide sufficient information for adequate case management or developing proposals for change.