The Conservative Party has promised to introduce new regional adoption agencies if it is still in government following the general election.
In the party’s newly released 2015 election manifesto, they claim that the proposed agencies would “match children with the best parents for them” by “working across local authority boundaries”.
The Tories said that they will spend £4.5 million to establish these new agencies. Children and Families minister Edward Timpson voiced his support for the proposal. He said that progress on adoption had been “far too slow” despite his claims that the coalition government had made great strides on the issue.
He added that there were “over 180 different agencies each trying to recruit adopters” and that the new regional agencies would help them “work together to recruit more adopters”. They would increase the efficiency of the adoption system, he claimed.
However, not everyone agrees with Mr Timpson’s assessment. Graeme McDonald, director of the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers (Solace) criticised the proposal as “an additional layer of unrepresentative bureaucracy”.
Instead, the “government should support councils in their existing efforts”, he argued. They should also do more to “remove bureaucratic barriers which slow the adoption process”.
Last month, the Department for Education announced that the number of adoptions in England last year was the highest it has been since 1992.
