Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to make the adoption process simpler and more straightforward.

The adopter approvals process was reformed in 2013 to ensure that prospective adopters could be assessed and approved more quickly. Most approvals should now take place within six months. The new assessment process is just as rigorous as its predecessor but is structured to ensure swift and appropriate progress.

The Department for Education has ensured that there has been continued improvement in opportunities to support matching children to adopters. This includes the work of the National Adoption Register service, and the provision of exchange days and adoption activity days. These services ensure that children who are not able to be placed locally are given the opportunity to be placed with unmatched adopters across the country. We have also been working to support and challenge social workers to help them accelerate the matching process by avoiding unnecessary delays.

Since 2010, a number of adoption support reforms have been introduced so that families can be confident that support will be provided if needed. These include: placing responsibility on local authorities to inform prospective adopters and adopters of their rights to assessments of need and entitlements to other adoption support services; improving access to specialist therapeutic services through the Adoption Support Fund; extending entitlements on priority school admissions, access to pupil premium and reforming adoption pay and leave.