Adoption

Andrew Smith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th November 2011 Westminster Hall

[Jessica Lee]

I of course welcome any initiatives that are being taken, and I am sure that more information will be presented about the pilots and process in Wales, which will help us all, throughout the country.

Turning to the streamlining of the process, I ask the Minister this: do the Government consider that the process takes too long on occasion? Are the assessments too lengthy? Is there too much bureaucracy? Again, I am not criticising individual social workers—adoption is not an easy area to work in, and those working in adoption teams are often passionate and committed to seeking a placement for children for whom they are responsible. My concern is about the culture that has developed regarding assessment and the heavy-handed approach to form-filling. We need to reach a position where professionals feel confident to exercise their judgment to make decisions. That is perhaps reflected in the conclusions of Eileen Munro’s review into social workers and how we can improve prospects for professionals.

[Mr Andrew Smith (Oxford East) (Lab)]

The hon. Lady has been generous in giving way, and I congratulate her on securing this important debate.

May I reinforce the hon. Lady’s point? Does she agree that Martin Narey’s evaluation of what is going on in the area is striking? He reported that one local authority required

“prospective parents to go through 146 pages of assessment.”

He also met a couple who had had to spend

“12 days with a social worker in their home assessing their readiness for adoption.”

At a time when almost

“three quarters of councils failed to place a child with their new adoptive family within 12 months of the adoption being finalised”,

does she agree that on both sides of the House we need to give the strongest support to Martin Narey in sending out the signal that pace and purpose need to be brought into the whole process, in the interests of the children?

[Jessica Lee]

I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has said. Of course we need to support Martin Narey, and I will come on to his report.

Another anecdotal example that one hears is that households are assessed through a form that is several pages long about the number of pets in the household, the fire drill process and so on. It prompts the question: where does the balance fall? Of course we need to safeguard children—no one would object to that. However, if every family of every newborn child who goes home from hospital with their natural parents had to produce a fire drill, a pet assessment form and details about its private life, the country would come to a standstill. We do not want to discourage people who have agreed to adopt and who have made an emotional commitment and a life-changing decision from applying. The concern, which we must tackle, is that such people are distracted or discouraged from continuing the process. In his report, Mr Martin Narey gives some excellent examples of where the problems lie.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. There is something seriously wrong with a process where those who can pay get it and those who cannot pay have to wait.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

On that point, does the hon. Gentleman share the ambition that Martin Narey set out regarding the scale of change needed when he suggested that the number of adoptions ought to double and the time taken to complete them ought to halve? Is that not the scale of change that we must press for?

[Jim Shannon]

I welcome those constructive comments. I would say that the number should more than double. If only 61 people in Northern Ireland were adopted in a year when 2,660 were awaiting adoption—I am mindful that those figures are for both short-term and long-term care—I would like that figure to more than double. However, I accept that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Smith]

I mention that ambition because that is what Martin Narey said. He set it in context by saying that even people who are pro-adoption—incredibly, he comes across people who are anti-adoption—have a feeling that that is too ambitious and undeliverable, but like the hon. Gentleman, I think that we ought to be capable of doing better than that.

[Jim Shannon]

I think that we all agree that we have to set targets that meet the need. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his comments.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I am not sure that I can exceed the florid language of the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson). I congratulate the hon. Member for Erewash (Jessica Lee) on securing the debate hard on the heels of national adoption week.

The more observant Members in the Chamber have realised that I am not the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who is incredibly disappointed that he cannot be present at the debate today—so disappointed that we spoke twice on the phone yesterday. He apologised personally to the hon. Member for Erewash, but he was in Birmingham yesterday and Sheffield today, speaking at child protection conferences among many other things. I will not say that he would rather be here, because that would cause terrible offence to people in Sheffield, but he was desperate to be present.

The debate has been fantastic—knowledgeable, passionate and informed by personal stories of adoption, whether as barristers or as families, whether as a brother or as adoptive parents. Hard on the heels of national adoption week, it is helpful to be able to do some of the myth-busting of which the hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich spoke. It is helpful to air some of the myths, then systematically knock some down. We want to be open to many more people as adoptive parents and to be robust in challenging some of the things that have grown up and which prevent people who have an enormous amount to give from coming forward.

The hon. Member for Erewash is a member of the Under-Secretary’s ministerial advisory group on adoption, so she is aware of his particular interest and passion. He is very determined to ensure that more children who have been overlooked are considered appropriately for adoption, in particular older and disabled children, and to speed up the adoption process as much as possible, so that they can be adopted at a younger age.

Over the past year, a great deal of activity has been going on. The Under-Secretary has been leading a wide programme of reform. The Government have issued revised guidance and national minimum standards, and an adoption and special guardianship data pack is available for local authorities to use to challenge the operation and performance of their adoption service. The Under-Secretary appointed Martin Narey as the ministerial adviser on adoption, and approved funding for Barnardo’s in partnership with the Coram Foundation, to engage with 24 local authorities and help them to improve adoption outcomes for children and the adoption services. The Government have approved funding for the British Association for Adoption and Fostering, to raise awareness of and to promote adoption, and for a one-year pilot project with a number of local authorities to gain a better understanding of how the adoption register is used to find families for children in need of adoption, and how matching decisions are made, which picks up on a point made by the hon. Member for Erewash. Findings from the project will inform the work of the register in helping local authorities to increase their matching rates.

As a number of hon. Members stated, disappointingly, adoption figures have fallen this year. I recognise the point made by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell), as well as by the hon. Members for Crewe and Nantwich and for Erewash, that adoption is not the only process. Special guardianship and permanent residency orders might well be more appropriate for some children in some situations. However, today’s debate is specifically about adoption, so what I want to say from here on in is specifically about adoption.

As the Prime Minister made clear last week, for too long, many children have been let down by the whole system, which was a point well made by the hon. Member for Erewash in her opening remarks. One person at fault is not what leaves so many children who should be adopted not getting that opportunity. The system has many different barriers at the moment, such as local authorities or the family justice system. The Under-Secretary has a chart on his wall, on which he can see the particular blocks in the system that cause the delays—a visible image that he looks at every day, to remind himself of the barriers and of where the Government is pushing to make the whole system more efficient.

The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North mentioned performance tables, which we released last week. I absolutely recognise her point, that we need to get under the skin of what some of those data mean. In some cases, local authorities might appear to have a slower rate, but they may be extremely good at placing older children, for example. However, that is part of encouraging local authorities to look at their practice and perhaps that of their next-door authorities. The lack of such a process, in particular with children in care and adoption, is a continual frustration to Ministers and I have heard the Under-Secretary speak about it. Often, one local authority appears to be completely oblivious of the good practice in a neighbouring authority that is fantastic in some areas. By putting the information out there, we hope that local authorities will speak to one another more and question their own work and that of their neighbours, and so understand how they might improve their practice.

[Mr Andrew Smith]

If the underperforming authority does not improve, would the Minister go so far as to support the authority with good performance taking over the responsibilities of the underperforming authority?

[Sarah Teather]

Local authorities have been working with the Government to improve their performance, with more peer-led performance improvement across the piece, particularly in this area. We are encouraging much more peer mentoring and working together to challenge performance on the ground. I will ensure that the right hon. Gentleman’s suggestion is brought to the attention of the Under-Secretary when considering what action we might take.

Last week, we published an adopters’ charter, to ensure that anyone who really wants to adopt a child is welcomed with open arms and can receive all the help and support that they need. That picks up on what many hon. Members have said. We want adopters to feel valued and respected for offering a chance to transform a child’s life. Many of the issues raised earlier, such as age, smoking or obesity, are not written into statutory guidance or legislation. Some things build up on the ground, unfortunately, as an expected way in which people will be rejected, but those are not things that the Government are facing or that local authorities ought automatically to use to rule some people out as parents. The child’s needs must always be paramount. I hope that things such as the adopters’ charter will help to deal with all those issues that potential families might face, to ensure that they are given the necessary support.

The hon. Member for Stockport (Ann Coffey) asked whether we are doing any research on support for adopted—