chapter four: key issues
This chapter sets out key changes the Government will make to address the problems identified previously, including:
• investing further in adoption services;
• setting out National Standards for Adoption;
• training more social workers to work with children;
• changing the law to support the changes in practice; and
• setting a target to increase the contribution adoption can make to finding permanent new families for looked after children.
Investment
4.1 The Government knows that councils are already improving their adoption services. Some of the Quality Protects money has been used to employ adoption specialists, and to provide dedicated teams for permanence, rather than requiring those working on child protection to focus on permanence as well. In the first year of the Quality Protects programme, 500 more children were adopted from care.
4.2 The Government will build on this achievement. Quality Protects has been extended to five years, with an increased grant in 200203 and 200304. The Government has made available £66.5m, over and above current spend on adoption, over the next three years, to secure sustained improvements in adoption services. Much of this money will be delivered through the Quality Protects grant.
4.3 This money will allow councils to meet their new obligations in planning for permanence and rise to the challenge of this White Paper.
National Adoption Standards for England, Scotland
and Wales
4.4 In order to improve the quality of adoption services across the board, the Government and, in the case of Scotland, the Scottish Executive is consulting on National Adoption Standards for England, Scotland and Wales (see Box).
4.5 The National Standards set out what children, prospective adopters, adoptive parents, and birth families can expect from the adoption process, and the responsibilities of adoption agencies and councils, so that all parties receive a fair and consistent service wherever they live. They are underpinned by a set of values, which stress the importance to each child of having a permanent family, where they are safe. They put the child's needs at the centre of the adoption process.
4.6 The Standards include timescales within which decisions for most children should be reached and action taken, to ensure that children are not kept waiting for a family.
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Headlines from National Standards
• Children should be at the heart of the adoption process.
• A plan for permanence should be made for each child within six months of being continuously looked after, and delivered promptly.
• Where the plan for permanence is adoption, a best interest decision should be made within six weeks.
• A family should be found for the child within a further six months.
• Prospective adopters should be welcomed by voluntary adoption agencies and councils, and dealt with efficiently and with respect.
• The process of being assessed to adopt should be clear and transparent, and people should not be automatically excluded on the grounds of age, health or other factors, except in the case of certain criminal convictions. These factors will be considered, in terms of their ability to look after children in a safe and responsible way, as part of the whole picture.
• A decision about whether or not to approve prospective adopters should be made within six months of them applying.
• Councils should provide a comprehensive package of post-placement and post-adoption support.
• Councils should plan and manage an effective adoption service.
• Adoption agencies and councils should provide a high quality adoption service, which meets the expectations of those involved.
• Agencies and councils should recruit enough adopters to meet the needs of children, and avoid delays in finding new permanent families.
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4.7 The Standards have been developed to set out how adoption services should be delivered across the board. When the final Standards are published in 2001, the Government will put in place a number of mechanisms to monitor their implementation. Some will be included in the initial set of minimum standards against which the National Care Standards Commission (NCSC) will inspect councils and voluntary adoption agencies, and on the basis of which adoption agencies will be registered. The Government will work with councils and voluntary adoption agencies to ensure that the Standards are delivered.
4.8 The Standards will also be used to inform Social Services Inspectorate inspections of adoption services.
Recruiting and training social workers
4.9 The Government is aware that there are shortages of trained staff in social care, and especially in children's services, and is committed to addressing them.
4.10 £41m over three years will be made available from 200102 to allow councils to support staff wishing to undertake professional social work training, currently the Diploma in Social Work. The funds will be payable to councils through the Training Support Programme, with the aim of attracting existing council staff.
4.11 The Government will be issuing detailed guidance shortly but these funds should help attract students onto the course, and reduce the drop-out rate, so increasing the number of qualified social workers.
4.12 The Government is aware that there may be difficulties in staff in the voluntary sector getting access to training. Training support funding may be used by councils to support employees of voluntary organisations or independent sector organisations that provide statutory services under contract to the council.
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"The challenge and difficulty...lies in identifying when return to the birth family is 'clearly not in prospect'"
President's Adoption Committee in their PIU report response
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4.13 The Department of Health recently consulted on the reform of social work training as part of the Quality Strategy for Social Care. The consultation period ended on 21st November 2000. In the light of the responses, the Government will revise the qualification to include a much stronger focus on children and adoption, and will announce the conclusions early in 2001.
Changing the law
4.14 The Government intends that all these developments, including Quality Protects, comprehensive National Standards setting high expectations and more rigorous training for social workers, will be set in the context of new adoption legislation. In 2001, the Government will legislate to overhaul and modernise the legal framework for adoption, and in particular:
• align the Adoption Act 1976 with the Children Act 1989, to make the needs of children paramount in making decisions about their future;
• provide for new options for permanence (see chapter 5);
• formalise the establishment of an Adoption Register for England and Wales (see chapter 6);
• establish an independent review mechanism for the process of assessing prospective adopters (see chapter 6);
• set out a legal framework to ensure the consistent provision of post-placement and post-adoption support (see chapter 6);
• give all families adopting children, especially those who have been looked after, a right to an assessment for post-placement support (see chapter 6);
• provide adopted people with consistency of access to information about their family history and their adoption (see chapter 6);
• allow bodies other than approved voluntary adoption agencies to provide birth records counselling for adopted people, provided they have been approved to do so (see chapter 6);
• require councils to pay the court fees when looked after children are adopted (see chapter 8).
4.15 Any issue on which the Government takes primary legislation will apply to Wales, as well as England.
The Public Service Agreement target
4.16 Taken together, the Government expects all these changes to produce a more effective adoption service which is held in high regard by all concerned. In 1999-2000, 2,700 looked after children were adopted. In future, the Government expects more looked after children to be adopted, without any reduction in the quality of adoption placements. Accordingly, the Government is setting targets, which will be incorporated into the Department of Health's Public Service Agreement:
• by bringing councils' practice up to the level of the best, by 200405, to increase by 40% the number of looked after children adopted* and aim to exceed this by achieving, if possible, a 50% increase;
• achieve this without compromising on quality, so maintaining current levels of adoptive placement stability;
• cut out drift and unnecessary delay for children by ensuring the adoption process takes place to timescales consistent with those set out in the National Standards. A specific target will be set when the Standards have been finalised, and we will expect councils will meet this target by 200405.
4.17 Achieving these ambitious targets will give hundreds more of our most vulnerable children the chance to benefit from a stable, safe, secure and loving family life.
4.18 But over time this must go further. The Government's aim is to transform the life chances of looked after children who cannot return to their birth parents by providing them with successful permanent placements that last and are right for them. These can take a number of forms, not just adoption. At the moment the Government lacks the information to be able to measure their long-term success and stability. The Government will therefore work with all the relevant stakeholders to develop appropriate ways to get regular information on the success of permanent placements, including adoption (for example, through voluntary anonymous surveys and through the new post-adoption and post-placement support services). It will use this information to help develop and set targets that focus on the success and stability of all permanent placements. We will aim to set such targets by 2004-05.
* And in other genuinely legally secure permanent placements, such as those under the proposed 'special guardianship' order, should they be introduced (see chapter 5).
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