Adoption and Children Act Register (Search and Inspection) (Pilot) Regulations 2014

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)]

My Lords, I rise briefly just to make a couple of comments on the regulations, and register my interest as chair of CAFCASS. In principle I am very supportive of this pilot. There are a number of good reasons for adopting this sort of approach, and I am aware from my work that a number of innovative programmes such as adoption activity days, which have been instigated to increase the number of adoptions and get a better matching process, have proved successful.

My first point is that it is of course of great importance to us all in this House to ensure that vulnerable children are properly protected and safeguarded. I listened with a lot of attention to what my noble friend said about the stringent safeguards that have been put in place to ensure that those data are protected. It is good to hear that but we are all aware of some things that have happened in recent times, however stringent the safeguards around data protection and IT systems have been. Can my noble friend reassure me just once more that he feels that every possible safeguard has been put in place?

As to my second point, I know that the evidence from the adopter-led matchings that we have seen so far has led more adopters to take a greater sense of ownership for what they are doing and to consider a wider range of children. I know that there are early signs that adopter-led matching enables adopters to think perhaps in terms of a broader group of children, rather than the just the nought to two year-olds who adopters so often feel they still want. Has the Minister any more information about the number of adopters involved in this and similar processes who have shown that they are happy to adopt slightly older children, or perhaps sibling groups? This, again, was one of the issues that came up when we were considering the then Children and Families Bill.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, I too welcome in principle the regulations, which will enable access to the register by prospective adopters. As the Minister has said, we debated the principle of this extensively in the course of the Bill, when it was a Bill, and I do not intend to spend time on that. It is worth experimenting further to see if this will improve the timescales within which children can be successfully matched, provided that there are sufficient safeguards, as the noble Baroness has just said.

The safeguards as regards access by prospective adopters, and the identities of the children outlined in the arrangements, are satisfactory and robust. The issue is the one identified by the noble Baroness opposite: data security. I agree with her that we want to be as clear as possible about this.

I know the register will be separated into Part 1 and Part 2, the latter for those children who could be placed in a fostering-for-adoption placement, which is sensible and important. I simply want to make two points. One is about the consultation. Although the Minister said it was a full public consultation, there were only 41 responses to this. Given the importance of this measure, that is a very low level of response. I wonder if that is because, as the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee has pointed out, there were only six weeks for this consultation over a very busy bank and public holiday period from the end of February through to April, taking in Easter and so on. That is important, and I would be grateful if the Minister could comment as to why it was only six weeks, when the normal period of 12 weeks might have got more responses and more helpful pointers from respondents.

My second set of points concerns the pilots. This is extremely important, as the Minister said, not only to ensure that the systems work, but to see if we can garner any further information about the outcomes for children from this approach. Nine months is not a terribly long period to see what happens to children as a result of adopter-led access to the register. I do not know, but there may be unintended consequences of adopter-led adoption. Surely we would want to know, for instance, if—relatively—more of these matches instigated by adopters either failed or were more successful. I have looked carefully at the explanatory notes that set out the scope of the pilot, which I think should be made a little wider, looking not just at the actual matches but at what happens to the inquiries by adopters in relation to particular children. How many of them actually lead to a match, and how many are stopped in process by social workers for whatever reason? Can we extend the remit of the pilot, so we get under the skin of what is happening before the whole facility for access goes live nationwide?

Thirdly, I have a thought. I have great respect for both the Department for Education and for the BAAF, but I wonder if there was merit in this pilot being evaluated independently, and not by either the department or the BAAF, which are obviously responsible for its administration. But I broadly very much welcome the measure, and look forward to seeing the results of the pilot.

[Lord Nash]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their comments. Turning to the points raised by my noble friend Lady Tyler, I reiterate a few points and add a few more on the safety front. Of course the safety of children—and of adopters—and the privacy of their information is paramount. The pilot will be subject to stringent independent accreditation to ensure that any risks are managed appropriately. It will be run by the BAAF, which has a very good record of this, as I said. Section 129 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 sets out that wrongful disclosure of information on the register is punishable by a fine of up to £5,000 and up to three months in prison. Information that approved adopters will be able to access about children will not enable them to make any direct approaches. All approved adopters must give written confirmation that they will keep their password safe and will be reminded of their data protection duties. If they do not use the register within a fairly short period, they will not be able to continue to access it. We will have a pretty close idea who has access to the register at any time.

The noble Baronesses asked about the number of adoptions made. It is early days. There is good evidence from the States. We know that one-fifth of matches are made through exchange days. In answer to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, I can say that we will analyse in detail the experience of these matches to make sure we improve matching and for what we can learn. I pay tribute to her party for introducing exchange days in the first place.

The real driver here is to try to speed up the process. The evidence is clear that every year that children fail to be adopted reduces their chance of being adopted by 20%. We must be very mindful of the damage to those children during that time.

On the length of the consultation, I should say that we published indicative regulations five months before the consultation began, so we thought it was long enough.

I hope I have answered all the points that noble Lords made. I can think of no better way of concluding our discussions today than by quoting an adopter who visited an exchange day. The adopter said:

“For the first time, these children featured in magazines were suddenly real and we could potentially be their new forever parents… I don’t think I would have approached some of the children just by reading their profiles or seeing a picture… It was a very effective way of dispelling some preconceived ideas or anxieties about children waiting for placement”.