Children and Young People

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The Government have strongly encouraged local authorities to have a senior educational officer known as a virtual school head to track closely the progress of every child in care and ensure they receive the support they need. Children in care are entitled to free early education for two year-olds, the pupil premium while at school and the new 16-to-19 further education bursary. Every child in care has to have a personal education plan setting out how they will be supported to fulfil their potential. Every school, including academies and free schools, has a legal duty to have a designated looked-after child teacher, and children in care get top priority in school admissions.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

My Lords, I asked a Question many years ago about adoption, and it has been asked again many times since. The age at which children are adopted is still far too high. Could we not avoid having so many children in care by applying more widely the concurrent adoption system, whereby a parent hoping to adopt can have the child to foster at a very early stage, even before the age of one year? All the world recognises that bonding works far better if a child comes to a family as early as possible. Would that not save us having ever so many unattractively aged children who people do not seem to want to adopt, sadly?

[Lord Nash]

I share my noble friend’s concerns on this. There is no doubt that the average time taken for a child to be adopted—two years and seven months, and a further year for a black child—is far too long. It is also true to say that would-be adopters in the system have not been well treated, when they should be welcomed with open arms. We are determined to reduce the time taken for adoption, and have introduced adoption scorecards to compare the performance of different local authorities, which varies widely. We have also published draft laws to stop ethnicity being a barrier to adoption. We are addressing the adoption recruitment problem by streamlining the adoption approval process, and we have published draft laws that promote the idea of fostering for adoption much earlier.