Prime Minister David Cameron has personally expressed alarm that only 60 babies aged under one were adopted in 2010/11.
According to Department for Education analysis, half of all babies who come into care aged under one month are eventually adopted, but it takes an average of more than 15 months for them to move in with their permanent families.
Many local authorities wait for a court order to be made before they place a child with prospective adoptive parents. The government believes this is because councils are harbouring “groundless doubts” about whether so-called fostering for adoption is either legal or good practice.
To tackle this, the government wants to legislate to make it standard practice for potential adopters to foster the children they could possibly adopt.
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