Camden New Journal - News: Child adoptions

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Camden New Journal - by ROISIN GADELRAB
Published: 30 August 2007

Council: we set our own targets on child adoptions

CAMDEN Council was last night (Wednesday) unable to tell the New Journal how many children it had adopted from birth – the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme Face the Facts.
The Friday programme claimed local councils are taking babies away from parents to help hit national adoption targets of 40 per cent, as set by Tony Blair in 2001.
But the Town Hall denies taking children away to meet any targets, claiming children are only adopted as a last resort.
Camden opted out of the government-set targets and last year set itself a target of 9.5 per cent (24 children) to be fully adopted but failed to meet this, only reaching 5.3 per cent (10 children).
The figures include children receiving special guardianship orders – a measure that comes half-way between fostering and full adoption.
These are based on Camden’s expectation that by 2008, 245 children will have been in care for more than six months.
Critics of the target system, including Birmingham Yardley MP John Hemming, say adoption targets are leading to an increase in younger children being taken into care – a more attractive option for prospective adoptive families. Statistics for 2005-2006 show nearly 15 per cent of children in care in Camden were under five years old.
However, the Town Hall has admitted that adoption targets were considered by government assessors when granting Camden Council last year’s four-star status.
But even though Camden failed to meet its own target last year – it still managed to achieve the highest rating a local authority can achieve.
Stars are granted through the Audit Commission’s Comprehensive Performance Assessment ratings, which take into account every aspect of Camden’s services, including the number of children in care who are then adopted.
A council spokeswoman said: “There is a performance indicator on the proportion of looked-after children adopted in the annual performance assessment framework. A council would not receive a direct financial reward for doing well on a single performance indicator and there is no financial disincentive for not meeting one.”
It has recently employed three permanent full-time social workers after disclosing 13 per cent of its 160 social workers were agency staff. These are paid for through a government adoption grant given to all local authorities.
She added: “We provide a tremendous amount of support to help keep families together. The final decision on adoption rests with the courts and before such an important decision is made it must be convinced that this is the best way to meet the child’s needs on a long-term basis.”

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