The government has announced plans to overhaul the way people in England are checked to see if they are suitable to adopt children.

It has set up a new panel which will work with its adoption advisor, Martin Narey to draw up plans.

Adoption has been in the spotlight over the last year with a high profile campaign in The Times which continually highlighted the problems of the current system. In October 2011 Osbornes held an adoption debate which saw over 200 individuals from across the adoption community come together to debate on what future changes are needed to the entire adoption process.

Leading adoption lawyer and consultant at Osbornes, Naomi Angell, appeared on the panel as well as Martin Narey.

The overhaul is part of a government pledge to speed up the adoption system making sure children remain in the system for a limited period of time before being adopted. Currently children wait an average of two years and seven months to be adopted, while it can take over a year for a couple or individual to be approved as an adopter.

Children's Minister Tim Loughton said "The assessment process for people wanting to adopt is painfully slow, repetitive and ineffective. Dedicated social workers are spending too long filling out forms instead of making sound, common-sense judgements about someone's suitability to adopt".

The new panel will include representatives from the British Association of Adoption and Fostering (BAAF), the Association of Directors of Children's Services, Adoption UK and the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies.

The panel have been asked to suggest ways to improve the way would be adoptive parents are recruited, assessed and trained and to "remove bureaucracy and overprescription" in information collected about them.

The panel will also set out timescales for checking people's suitability and training them as well as suggesting new ways of monitoring the success of the adoption system. Martin Narey commented that it was "the assessment process which was the biggest cause of delays in adoptions and the reason why so many children were left in care". He continues "The parental assessment process is not fit for purpose. It meanders along, it is failing to keep pace with the number of children cleared for adoption , and it drives many outstanding couples to adopt from abroad".

Local councils agree that the existing system for assessing would-be parents is slow and bureaucratic but insist that it is vital for the assessment process to remain as rigorous as possible because the children involved are among the most vulnerable in society and a breakdown in an adoption could be catastrophic for them.

The argument is that detailed checks can reduce the risk of such breakdowns.

Naomi Angell commenting on the announcement says:

"Adoption assessments have to be robust for the sake of children already harmed by families who could not adequately care for them, often compounded by many moves and uncertainty in the care system, these children's adoptions must work and not breakdown. What are needed are assessments that concentrate on whether families wanting to adopt have the capacity to meet the children's needs, conducted by skilled social workers. The feared, detailed focus on intimate aspects of adopters' lives must. be strictly limited to what is truly necessary to address that and concentrate instead on proper analysis of parenting ability".

Naomi continues:

"At its best the assessment process should be both educative for the adopters as well as enabling effective social work judgements to be made, not what some families wanting to adopt describe as a game of fantasy football where the rules are unclear and the goal posts are constantly moving."

It will be most interesting to see what plans and ideas this new panel proposes in the future.

Naomi Angell is a leading adoption lawyer in the UK. If you are thinking about adopting a child contact Naomi for advice on the legal process.

Osbornes recently held an adoption debate which not only featured Naomi Angell, but the government advisor on adoption, Martin Narey, a Court of Appeal Judge and the CEO of Adoption UK.

You can reach Naomi by:

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The family department at Osbornes is recommeded and ranked by independent legal directories Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners.  Our specialist famiy lawyers in London advise on all aspects of family law including divorce law.

Naomi is also ranked in Chambers and Partners, an independent legal directory as a recommended family law solicitor.