BAAF 'overspent' by £500,000 on DfE adoption register security requirements

As part of plans announced last July, the government wants prospective adopters to be able to search videos and photos of children waiting to be adopted on the National Adoption Register.

The Adopter Access Pilot, which was being managed by BAAF prior to it going into administration on 31 July, had been due to launch last September, but in November CYP Now revealed the project was running late due to security concerns.

Former BAAF staff have now claimed that the hold-up was over a Department for Education requirement for IT security to be upgraded.

One former employee told CYP Now that as part of the contract for the National Adoption Register, BAAF was asked to upgrade its security to "Impact Level 3" (IL3), at a cost of £500,000.

IL3 is a government standard for the protection of “restricted” data and requires secure IT systems and databases and use of encryption, as well as enhanced physical security – protection from fire, natural disasters, burglary, theft, vandalism, and terrorism.

The former employee said the charity also lost money on provision of adoption activity days on behalf of the DfE, a deal that was linked to the award of the National Adoption Register contract.

They said that BAAF was paid by the DfE to provide 10 adoption activity days but the money did not cover the cost.

“The DfE wouldn’t let us charge and gave us £50,000 for them (£5,000 each), but the basic cost price of an event and staffing was £14,000 to £20,000 and they were to be free to local authorities,” the former employee said.

“I really think BAAF should have been more robust in their response to that and the IL3 implementation.”

Meanwhile a letter from a former BAAF director to the charity’s administrators and the Charity Commission, which is currently deciding whether to investigate concerns about the collapse, raises a number of other concerns.

The letter asks for clarification on what happened to £260,000 that was remaining from a £499,000 grant from the Big Lottery Fund in May 2014 for the provision of adoption activity days, work that transferred to CoramBAAF, when BAAF closed.