The Local Government Association, the Association of Directors of Children's Services and the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives have all spoken out against the scorecards, which rank councils' performance against adoption targets.
In a joint statement, the organisations said the cards fail to provide comparable data between local authorities and could put potential adopters off.
The statement said: “The adoption scorecards have the potential to cause unnecessary and avoidable concern in communities and may put prospective adopters off.
“The data fails to provide a sound basis for comparison across local authority areas. For example, one council’s Ofsted-rated outstanding adoption service looks like a poor performer in the scorecard – and this is simply not credible.
"We have engaged constructively with the Department for Education and are therefore even more disappointed that our shared improvement agenda is undermined by a misleading use of data.
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