Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 129)
TUESDAY 1 MAY 2001
MS FELICITY
COLLIER AND
MS DEBORAH
CULLEN
120. What you feel is the most important factor
is making sure that children are placed as quickly as possible;
you see that as being overriding?
(Ms Collier) It will vary according to the needs of
the individual child. When talking about very small children that
is very important. If there are people who are currently being
assessed to adopt when, in order for them to be assessed, there
may be a delay of several months, then if there are people to
consider for that child we would think waiting the extra few months
for some children would certainly be an important balance in terms
of their commitment. There are some children, older children,
who are absolutely clear that they want to live with a black family
and where that is very important to their own self-esteem and
their own contact with other members of their family. For those
children the balancing act will be different; and it will be appropriate
to wait longer when finding security and permanence in other ways
to meet children's needs. We reflect the importance of avoiding
unnecessary delay.
(Ms Cullen) Not to say that one factor overrides all
the others. That is why the checklist is set out and is not necessarily
in a particular order. All those factors have to be taken into
account. As Felicity says, with different children, different
ages and different circumstances, one factor will weigh heavier
than it will in another case. I do not think one would want one
thing to override anything else.
(Ms Collier) We have been very clear in identifying
in Surveying Adoption, which I know you are familiar with,
that some black infants experienced considerably longer delays
than other children. We are not satisfied with that, and we are
drawing this to people's attention—both in recruitment campaigns
to recruit more adopters, and also recognising for some mixed
parentage children it is very difficult to find a family within
a reasonable timescale that reflects their ethnicity and we have
to look more widely to find families.
Chairman: I am conscious we have spent an hour
on Clause 1, I think it is because it such an important area and
we have had a useful exchange. Can we turn to the issue of support
services where you have raised certain points in your evidence.
Mr Shaw
121. I want to say something to link previous
evidence. Do you have a concern that there is a danger for all
the political parties (with the main agenda being numbers and
throughput) that we might lose the focus of the damaging effect
that we know of from research—when black children are placed
in white placements, and grow up with horror stories of children
bleaching their skin because they are confused about their identity
etc? I hope that we do not, but it does not seem that has been
around in the debate. Do you have that concern, or are you satisfied
that we are being sufficiently aware of that and will not be so
focused on numbers?
(Ms Collier) I think that is why, in issues about
the balance in terms of each individual decision, there will be
different issues, and some families are better able to assist
those children to develop as confident and successful people than
others. As I have said, it is a very important consideration to
take into account whenever you are placing children that the placement
of choice is a family that reflects that child's own heritage;
and that means the application of better support to black families
who are certainly economically disadvantaged in our society; and
clarity about the proper framework of adoption allowances and
support services as recommended by Professors Murch and Lowe in
Supporting Adoption research.
122. In Supporting Families you made
the point, and I raised this last week, that we would perhaps
encourage more people to come forward when they receive support.
We know that where local authorities are performing well in terms
of the number of children who are adopted, it was said last week
in evidence, that generally all of their adoption services were
of a good standard; you do not necessarily see at the front end
lots of children coming through and at the back end lots of breakdowns,
so there would be a good service from start to end. Word on the
street within those particular areas is about good back-up from
the local authority when there were particular difficulties and
there was respite care and support. It is about local confidence
as well within the areas. One of the issues, it seems to me, for
adoptive families is that they do not necessarily want to see
themselves in mainstream social services. It is likely children
they adopt come to them for all reasons, of abuse etc., and they
do not necessarily want to be lumped in with children and families.
Do you advocate, where local authorities are setting up support
services, it should be external to that of the mainstream?
(Ms Collier) We would argue for a consistent quality
of post-adoption support services across the country, not just
provided by the Social Services Department but provided by mainstream
education and health. To take your earlier point—you may
have confidence to adopt a child locally if you see the quality
and the way that services are provided; but if you move house
to another area, perhaps because of job issues, you need to be
assured you will get the same level. With the prospective National
Adoption Register, with perhaps more children placed at a distance,
it is critical that there is confidence and equality across the
country in those provisions. Some of the good high quality of
post-adoption services we have seen have been provided by dedicated
teams for whom it is their particular task, rather than children
being referred to a children in need team; but actually having
post-adoption support services that are ring-fenced within the
local authority that seems to make sense; some contract with very
good voluntary adoption agencies; and we know that the Government
has commissioned one of the voluntary adoption agencies to develop
a post-adoption framework structure and we applaud that.
Mrs Spelman
123. Coming on to the area of Adoption Allowances,
I wonder if you would give a bit more clarification to us really
on your view on the provision of post-assessment support services.
Specifically, I wonder whether you think that special guardians
should be provided the same financial support as children in the
care of adoptive parents?
(Ms Collier) Yes, we particularly recognise that special
guardianship may particularly apply to children who are with foster
carers with whom they are very settled, where legal separation
from their birth families may not be appropriate but the foster
carers want to make that commitment to the children, and may well
be persuaded to do so if they have had the potential of the drop
in income which we know will be very important to family income
maintenance. Equally, relatives: grandparents may want to make
that commitment to their grandchildren with special guardianship
where financial support will be critically important. We think
the same order of financial support should apply. I have to say,
we are not confident there is sufficient detail in this legislation
in the face of the Act about the level of financial support. We
are unhappy about it being left to regulations and subsequent
development. We want absolute clarity about a national framework
for adoption allowances; the same levels of assessment and clear
levels of financial support. We recognise—and I know that
Julian Brazier has quoted this as an example—that very significant
adoption subsidies have been made available in the US, particularly
for foster carers, and have made a tremendous difference. We applaud
this and we believe this is very important.
124. Just a rider to that—what about informal
and private fostering arrangements?
(Ms Collier) We are very concerned about private fostering
arrangements. I would like to draw your attention to an anomaly.
Yesterday the Government introduced one of the Clauses of the
Adoption (International Aspects) Act which made it an offence
for people to have a child placed with them overseas for the purposes
of adoption if they have not been properly approved; and yet we
have the anomaly in this country where birth families can select
and find a private foster carer and place the child with those
foster carers. There is an expectation subsequently that they
will register with a local authority and have a very basic check
on police and medical clearance, but there is nothing about the
fact that many of these people are failed foster parents who have
not actually been approved as suitable. I have to say, we have
two issues here: Sir William Utting identified this as one of
the very difficult areas and made a very clear recommendation
in the Children's Safeguard Report, following investigations of
abuse in residential and foster care, that all private foster
carers should be registered, and it should be an offence to place
a child with a private foster carer who had not been approved
prior to the placement as suitable by the local authority. That
recommendation was not taken on-board by the Government; although
they did say they would highlight the importance of foster carers'
registering arrangements, and I am aware that this campaign is
shortly to start. We do not think that that is enough. We are
very concerned about this issue. We also recognise that the Victoria
Climbié case is an example of a child privately fostered
by somebody who was not a close blood relative, and the Lord Laming
inquiry is ensuing; but we see no reason to wait for the outcome
of that inquiry when somebody of the respectability of Sir William
Utting made this recommendation; and we have the gross example
of this case that has hit the public eye in relation to the Internet
twins. The Government has an ideal opportunity to insert this
provision into this Adoption and Children Bill, and we urge you
all to recognise this.
Ms Taylor
125. I agree with an awful lot of what you say,
and would like to hear what you think we could provide, should
provide or maybe even should not provide to women who are unsure
about their pregnancies; they might even decide they are unwanted
pregnancies and they may decide that going through this period
in their lives they would like someone to turn to. We could be
talking about some very young people. From all the information
you have sent us I do not think I have actually gleaned anything
from you about how and in what way this group of people should
be or could be supported. I happen to believe that young women
most particularly (but it does not just relate to young women)
are oftentimes sheer desperate to speak with people, to talk to,
to be counselled, to be supported, so that they can come to a
decision about their pregnancy; and possibly it means they are
supported to keep their child, and we are giving them that support,
or they may make a decision that they want the child to be placed.
How do you see that support panning out? Do you see it as relevant?
(Ms Collier) Yes, we do see it as relevant. We think
there is a very delicate balancing act to not dissuade the young,
vulnerable woman coming forward for support, because if they believe
there will be some pressure (and I know you are not talking about
pressure) to lose their babies through adoption—and it is
losing their babies through adoption—we would be concerned
about that. We ourselves publish a leaflet Single, Pregnant
and Thinking About Adoption which affords young women the
opportunity to look at where they might turn in relation to that
sort of help and where that should be available, in maternity
units and so on. I do think we need to recognise that some of
the youngest women who decide to go full-term with their pregnancies
would not wish to consider adoption, and need to have the support
and care of their children themselves. We are concerned that we
have heard stories of young women who have approached local authorities
to consider having their babies adopted and been told (and I am
not saying this happens in the main), to "come back after
the baby is born as they may change their mind". We do not
think that is acceptable and we have published advice and guidance
about the importance of providing a counselling service so they
can form their thoughts, which they may review post-birth at that
time. We actually do not think there would be a massive increase
on the number of young women wanting to have their babies adopted.
Chairman: We had hoped to conclude this first
session by quarter to twelve but I do not think we are going to
do that. There are two key areas we wanted to ask you questions
about, and I would appeal to my colleagues and myself to be brief
in terms of the questions. The review mechanism and placement
orders—Julian Brazier.
Mr Brazier
126. In your evidence you have some objections
to this. Would you like to explain how you feel about this?
(Ms Cullen) Obviously an awful lot is open because
most of it is to be dealt with by regulation; but there is a specific
provision that the expenses of the Review Panel might be paid
by the agency. We are concerned about that, both from the point
of view that small adoption agencies have very limited resources,
but more in terms of the interests of both applicants and children.
We would not want this to act as a perverse incentive for agencies
to say, "We can't afford the cost of a review, so we'd better
say we're going to approve these people". If they are actually
approved it does not follow that they will be used; so they will
be more dissatisfied in the long-run because no child will be
placed. Or, potentially, they might be used and they are not suitable,
and that will be disastrous for the child. As far as I understand
it, the way the local authority ombudsman works, although the
costs of that are met by a general levy on local authorities,
it is not per case. Even a local authority that has been found
guilty of maladministration may have to pay a sum to the party
affected but does not have to pay the costs of the ombudsman.
I think it would be wrong for the individual agencies to pay the
cost of the review.
127. That seems to me to be a very fair point.
Do I take it from what you have said you do not object to the
principle of the independent review mechanism?
(Ms Collier) We welcome it because it will give adopters
confidence. We want more people to come forward and have confidence.
We do not think it is appropriate for agencies to pay for that
review because there would be all sorts of complexities.
Mr Shaw
128. Your good friends at the Association of
Directors of Social Services do not share your view. They have
said in evidence to us that there is no evidence to support the
contention that adoption agencies turn down large numbers of potential
adopters. They are saying that since the Government introduced
amendments to regulations three years ago this has been effective.
Are we going to bog down the process by lots of people who want
to seek a review where potentially social workers, all those involved,
are getting on and assessing other people who are likely to be
successful?
(Ms Collier) I do not disagree with the Association
of Directors of Social Services. Our evidence shows that 94 per
cent. of those people going to adoption panels are approved. Nevertheless,
we are concerned about the negative effect of people coming forward
from high profile cases that have been discussed in the press
about people who have been rejected, and it is purely about transparency.
We recognise that if a review system is not tightly managed there
will be some people for whom there is confidential information
available which would be very difficult to share, perhaps of a
medical nature, that actually means they will not be approved
by them ever. We hope and trust the review system will be able
to look at the papers and decide whether to go forward with a
full assessment. We can never be complacent about the confidence
of adopters. In fact, there will be the odd person in any system
who feels unfairly treated and to some degree may be right. It
is about getting the resources for that but not wasting the resources.
I do not think there is that much difference.
Mr Swayne
129. My concern is about the abolition of freeing
orders. I am aware of the criticism there has been about freeing,
particularly with respect to delays. I was not aware of any cause
for them to be removed. I wanted to be assured that many of the
advantages for which freeing orders were sought were preserved,
in your view, in the new regime?
(Ms Cullen) I would say that there is some detail
there that needs picking over but, on the whole, placement orders
preserve the good points of freeing orders, while managing to
get rid of the major drawbacks: the fact that the relationship
with the parent is completely ended by a freeing order even if
the child is never subsequently adopted; and the fact that the
parents under a freeing order may not have any standing with which
to come and talk about whether they want to have contact once
the Adoption Order is made. They will not have completely lost
their parental responsibility under a placement order so their
views will still be able to be taken into account and the child
has not completely lost the relationship; so if the child is not
adopted he or she still has parents. We certainly welcome the
concept of placement orders, and although there is some argument
on the detail I think we would say that they are a big improvement
on freeing.
(Ms Collier) We welcome the National Adoption Register
which we think is a very important development. We need to declare
an interest because we had tendered and we know there has been
no decision in relation to that; and we must bear that in mind
in relation to a point I am now going to make. The Government
did make a commitment to have this up and running in July and
has not yet made a decision. We are very concerned about the impact
of delay. We think this is a very important facility which is
going to go through and hope that this will be addressed. Secondly,
although we believe a National Adoption Register offers a very
important opportunity, whether or not a local authority uses families
that are referred to them as suitable for a child may inevitably
be dictated to by their own budgetary restraints, because of the
application of inter-agency fees. This means there is no easy
alternative to inter-agency fees, whereby the local authority
placing a child pays for the costs of recruiting and assessing
families. We thought it very important that this issue is addressed.
We know that the PIU report, the Prime Minister's report, did
not say that this is a major disincentive. We beg to disagree
with them—that is not the evidence we received from our
members. We think there should be some central pot or ring-fenced
fund that would not act as a disincentive to recruitment. We do
not have much time, but we urge you to give this more attention.
Chairman: Could I thank you for your cooperation
with this Inquiry. We are most grateful to you. Thank you.
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