Ensuring more children are adopted has arguably been the coalition government's primary aim for the care system since 2010.
But the plans have been blown significantly off course this month with news that the number of court orders granted so that children can be adopted - known as placement orders - have more than halved in just nine months.
Between April and June this year, 760 placement orders were granted, compared with 1,550 orders being made between July and September 2013 (see graph). The decline has been blamed on local authorities misinterpreting legal judgments from last year.
So-called "myth-buster" guidance has been published by the Adoption Leadership Board to provide local authorities with clarification about the court judgments in an attempt to get them applying for placement orders once again (see box).
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