Charlie Elphicke
Main Page: Charlie Elphicke (Independent - Dover)Department Debates - View all Charlie Elphicke's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 11 months ago)
Commons Chamber2. What progress his Department has made on steps to speed up the adoption process.
15. What progress his Department has made on steps to speed up the adoption process.
In May, my Department published scorecards for local authorities to enable them to identify and tackle the causes of delay in the adoption system. My Department will shortly launch a consultation on changes to speed up processes for prospective adopters, and we plan to introduce legislation thereafter.
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise that issue. There have been a number of occasions in the past when, for the best of motives, social workers have felt it inappropriate to match children with prospective adopters because faith might have been seen as a barrier. I do not believe that faith should be a barrier to ensuring that children find a loving home.
We know that some 5,000 children have placement orders, but the number of approved parents is less than a third of that figure. Does not this highlight the importance of hammering home to social services authorities the need to welcome prospective adopters and push the process through so that they can adopt children today?
I absolutely agree. One of the most heartbreaking aspects of my job is reading about parents who want to adopt children but who have found that, for understandable reasons, the system has been far too bureaucratic and slow in allocating children to them. Working with the best in local authorities, I am sure that we can all do better.