Children in care wait 20 months for adoption

Children in care in the Anglia region wait an average of 20 months before being placed with an adoptive family. Credit: Milan Jurek

Children in care in the Anglia region are forced to wait an average of 20 months to move in with adoptive parents. The figures are revealed in new adoption scorecards for each council published by the government.

The average time it takes between children being taken into care to being placed with an adoptive family is 22 months in Hertfordshire and in Southend-on-Sea. In contrast the same process takes less than 16 months in Cambridgeshire.

The government currently has set a target of 21 months to be reduced to 14 months in the next four years.

These are the current times for each of the local authorities in the Anglia region:

  • Southend - 22 months

  • Hertfordshire - 22 months

  • Luton - 21 months

  • Essex - 21 months

  • Milton Keynes - 21 months

  • Norfolk - 19 months

  • Northamptonshire - 19 months

  • Peterborough - 19 months

  • Suffolk - 18 months

  • Bedford - 18 months

  • Cambridgeshire - 16 months

Children's Minister Tim Loughton said the first-ever local authority scorecards were a "trigger for urgent, detailed discussions" to speed up the process.

Council leaders and children's services professionals condemned the scorecards and warned they have the potential to cause "unnecessary and avoidable concern in communities where there shouldn't be any".