Councils must do more to ensure children awaiting adoption are not deprived of a loving permanent family because of council delays, children’s minister Edward Timpson has said.
The call comes as the Government publishes its second set of adoption scorecards, which show how quickly children were adopted between April 2009 and March 2012.
The new scorecards highlight continued and significant differences in the time councils take to place children from care into the families of prospective adopters.
Some councils took on average two and a half years to place a child with an adoptive family, a process which takes less than a year and a half in 15 council areas across England.
The scorecards show how each council has done against two thresholds:
- average time between a council receiving court approval to place a child and a council deciding on a match to an adoptive family;
- and the average time between a child entering care and moving in with an adoptive family.
The new data shows that 37 councils failed to meet both thresholds.