Children and Adoption Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness raised several different points, and I shall cover those that I can, although I may need to give her some further details later. My noble friend Lady Ashton said at Second Reading that we would not introduce the charges until we were confident that the process of re-engineering the casework function was completed. The noble Baroness asked for more information about the improvements that would be made before we introduced those charges. As she knows, the introduction of charging will in itself not produce a better casework service. A whole set of changes are in place to improve the service independently of the provisions of Clause 12. Over the coming months, the teams doing casework will be brought together in one location in Darlington so that we can pool resources and ensure that, if there is a sudden surge in intercountry adoptions, the shared capacity of the joint casework team will be used to meet extra demand, and vice versa, by bringing together casework professionals who will enable flexibility and good practice to be shared. The current delays in the intercountry adoption processing times are often caused by factors outside the control of the casework team, who are dependent on adoption agencies, notaries and foreign embassies and the requirements of foreign authorities. We are working with UK adoption agencies to increase the number of applications received with full and complete documentation, including the provision of a specific tool to assist them in that. That should allow cases to be processed more efficiently. Given that much of the process is carried out by other agencies outside the control of the department, we could not set a single specific target for the overall time taken for cases to be processed. However, we anticipate that when the other country’s requirements are straightforward and when other agencies do not further delay the process, a reasonable time from receipt of full and complete documentation to an application being sent to the foreign authorities should be within the region of 12 to 14 weeks. That is significantly less than the 23 weeks that the noble Baroness mentioned as sometimes applying now. We are considering specific internal performance measures for the parts of the process that are within the department’s direct control and we would seek to make that period of 12 to 14 weeks operational before we introduced charges. On the basis on which we would waive fees, which was a matter that the noble Baroness raised with respect to lower income for adopters, I assure the noble Baroness that we shall set clear and objective criteria, linked to income, to assess whether prospective adopters should pay a fee. That will be linked to another system or model in use by the governments. In order not to increase the overall cost of the process, we intend that by using another system or model in use by the governments, the assessments will involve minimal administrative work required by the adopter, adoption agencies or the DfES. I do not yet have details of how that system will work, but we shall publish them as soon as we have them available. But I believe that it will give sufficient assurance to lower income adopters that they will not be out of pocket thereby. On the standards for local authorities for intercountry adoption, we have just provided a tool to enable local authorities to ensure that they provide all relevant papers. We have also specified for the first time the relevant documents in regulations, which will be in force from 30 December this year. As for what the £800 or whatever figure thereabouts to be charged will be paying for, that is our estimated cost of providing the service. Given that it is a personal service that requires quite some administrative work, it does not seem unreasonable to us. It is a personal service provided on behalf of the adopter, so it is a different service from the sort mentioned by the noble Baroness. I believe that that meets many of the points that she has raised, although not all of them. I will study what she said with care and return with further particulars about the points that I have not been able to cover.