Adoptions drop by 20% in two years
Charities blame the fall on judges
‘Give a child a second chance’
THE number of adoptions has plunged by 20 per cent in just two years, figures revealed yesterday.
Latest statistics show there were 4,350 children adopted from care in the year to March, down from 5,360 in 2015.
Charities have blamed the drop on judges who in 2013 ruled that adoption should only be considered ‘ when nothing else will do’.
The decline comes despite the efforts of ministers, who since 2010 have sought to encourage adoption.
Michael Gove, who was adopted as a child, led a campaign to boost the number of youngsters in care finding permanent families when he was Education Secretary.
The charity Adoption UK said it was ‘saddened’ by the continued fall. Its chiefs pointed to the 2013 court cases, known as Re B and Re B-S, which put the brakes on the Government’s drive to boost adoptions.
In the first of these, Supreme Court judge Lady Hale, who is to be sworn in next month as President of the Supreme Court, blocked the adoption of a three-year-old girl from a deeply troubled family.
She ruled that adoption – when a child legally becomes part of a new family, and the links to its birth family are severed – should only be used as ‘a last resort ... when nothing else will do’.
Because adoptions take around two years to complete, the effects of the judgment are only now starting to be reflected. Dr Sue Armstrong Brown of Adoption UK said: ‘I am certain that this is a hangover from the confusion over the Re B and Re B-S rulings. ‘Adoption, when it’s the most appropriate option for a child in care, can offer the best chance to permanently break a cycle of neglect and abuse and give a child a second chance at fulfilling their potential with the support of a loving family.’ Dr Armstrong Brown added that there was a shortage of people being approved by social workers to adopt children from care.
‘We know that the sooner children find permanence in their adoptive home, back with their birth families, or in long-term care plans, the better their outcomes,’ she said.
New figures from the Department for Education show that a record 72,670 children were looked after by the state care system in the 12 months to the end of March.
The number has risen by around 20 per cent since 2008, following a review of the care system after the Baby P scandal, in which 17-month- old Peter Connelly died from a series of injuries despite being visited by social workers, police and NHS staff more than 60 times.
The DfE said that the amount of time it takes on average for a child moving from the care system to a new family through adoption has fallen to two years from two years and six months in 2013.
It added that 3,690 children were given special guardianship orders, a legal status short of adoption which gives parental rights to a guardian such as a grandparent.
The DfE declined to comment on the adoption figures.