Number of looked-after children allocated permanent placements grows

The overall number of looked-after children living in permanent placements is rising, despite figures showing a drop in the number of adoptions, according to the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS).

The claim came as the government launched its latest drive to increase adoptions by publishing league tables ranking every local authority against 15 indicators for children in care, including how quickly they place children for adoption.

The children’s minister Tim Loughton said: “Local authorities should be in no doubt that we expect to see improvements in the coming months. We simply will not tolerate continued failure when that failure means a child’s future put at risk.”

In extreme cases, responsibility for looked after children could be taken away from councils judged to be failing children and transferred to a neighbouring local authority or private provider.
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But Matt Dunkley, president of ADCS, argued that the drop in adoptions masks the wider picture for children in care, more of whom are benefiting from permanent placements through special guardianship arrangements and residence orders.

A special guardianship order gives the special guardian legal parental responsibility for a child, but does not remove parental responsibility from the child’s birth parents. Residence orders provide someone who is not a legal parent of a child with parental responsibility, usually another relative or a family friend.

While adoptions fell from 3,200 last year to 3,040 this year, special guardianship orders increased from 1,290 to 1,740 and residence orders from 1,010 to 1,180. As a result, ADCS said, permanent placements increased from 5,500 to 5,960 overall.

“Local authorities are increasingly successful in finding permanent placements for these children and young people,” Dunkley said.

“Adoption is the best solution for many children in the care system, but it is not the only means of securing permanence and stability – options like special guardianship and residence orders are increasingly being used to secure stable homes for children and young people for whom adoption is not an option.”

Dunkley acknowledged that the adoption system should be reformed to speed up the matching of vulnerable children with potential adopters. But he said reform must not compromise social workers’ ability to make in depth assessments of children’s needs.

“There is potential to streamline this process while continuing to ensure that all parts of the system can assure themselves that the best decision is being made for the child,” he said.

According to the government’s new league tables, York, South Tyneside and Hartlepool are rated top over the past three years for placing children for adoption.

The percentage of children leaving care for adoption ranges from 26 per cent to just two per cent in different local authorities.

The best local authorities for getting children in care into higher education were Barking & Dagenham and West Berkshire, but 36 local authorities had fewer than 10 per cent of children in care achieving five A* to C GCSEs and equivalent, including English and maths. The best, Sutton, had 25 per cent.

The proportion of care leavers not in education, employment or training ranged from just 15 per cent in the best area to 69 per cent in the worst.

David Simmonds, chairman of the Local Government Association’s (LGA’s) Children and Young People Board, admitted that performance on adoption varies across councils, because the “system has been risk averse” at times.

But he said local authorities want to work with government to remove barriers to swift care proceedings, including delays in the family courts.

“The LGA is currently developing a £10m programme that will encourage children’s services professionals to share information on what works,” he said. “Helping councils to improve adoption processes will be a key part of this.”