Asked by: Lord Russell of Liverpool (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what impact the Adoption Support Fund has had on rates of adoption disruption since its inception in 2015.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
The information requested on all adoptions which breakdown after the adoption order is granted is not held centrally. The attached research report, ‘Beyond the adoption order’, was published in 2014 and gave a one-off insight into adoption disruption. It can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/beyond-the-adoption-order-challenges-intervention-disruption.
Some information is collected on children who return to care and who are reported as having previously been adopted. This is published in table C1 (attached) in the statistical release ‘Children looked after in England including adoption: 2017 to 2018’. It can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/children-looked-after-in-england-including-adoption-2017-to-2018. These figures were collected for the first time in 2014 and should be treated with caution as the information is based on self-declaration, and for a large number of children the previous permanence arrangement is not known.
The independent, 2-year evaluation of the Adoption Support Fund (ASF), published in August 2017 (attached), found that ‘a large majority of survey respondents believed that the support provided through the ASF had helped them’.
Asked by: Lord Russell of Liverpool (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what support regional adoption agencies will provide for adoptive families from 2020 onwards.
Answered by Lord Agnew of Oulton
Over half of all local authorities in England are already delivering adoption services through a regional adoption agency (RAA), and we expect all local authorities to be doing so from 2020. RAAs aim to deliver a regional adoption system where sufficient high-quality adoption services are available nationwide for all adopted children and their families.
Following the launch of a RAA it will be the responsibility of the agency to ensure that high quality adoption support is available within their region. This will be driven by local need and developed through learning from best practice across the regionalised system. All services should be provided to meet the requirements as set out in the Adoption and Children Act (2002).
Asked by: Lord Russell of Liverpool (Crossbench - Excepted Hereditary)
Question to the Home Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government when they anticipate the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration to publish the outcomes of his inspection of the Home Office's charging for services in respect of its asylum, immigration, nationality and customs functions.
Answered by Baroness Williams of Trafford - Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms (HM Household) (Chief Whip, House of Lords)
The Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration (ICIBI) report on an inspection of the Home Office Borders, Immigration and Citizenship System’s policies and practices relating to charging and fees was received on 24 January 2019.
Wherever possible, the Department will lay ICIBI reports before Parliament within 8 weeks of receipt, or as soon as possible thereafter.