My Lords, Amendments 33, 34 and 32ZA raise important issues about ensuring that any use of the power given to the Secretary of State in Clause 13 is transparent and considers the impact on voluntary adoption agencies, other parts of children’s social care and the provision of post-adoption support. The amendments require an annual report to be laid before Parliament and enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to jointly determine who should deliver adoption functions.
I thank noble Lords for raising these issues and I agree that we need to be clear about how this power is used, and what its impact is, so I appreciate the intent behind the amendments. First, I assure both noble Lords that any use of the power will be transparent and fair. Decisions will be informed by input from the affected agencies and other agencies operating in the local area, including voluntary agencies. However, I believe that laying an annual report before Parliament on the use and impact of the power would be disproportionate, and that directing local authorities and voluntary agencies to make decisions jointly will not work in practice. I will go on to explain why.
First, I assure the Committee that we have carefully considered the impact that moving to regional adoption agencies will have on other parts of the care system, and on the provision of post-adoption support. We have been clear that regional adoption agencies need to consider how adoption support functions will be carried out and how links with other parts of children’s social care will be maintained. This includes ensuring that adopted families have access to appropriate mental health support to meet their children’s needs. We will come to that in more detail in the next set of amendments. We see regional adoption agencies as an opportunity to deliver improvements in these areas. We are also encouraging innovation. This may well include broadening the regional approach to include wider permanence services, where this has potential to drive improvement.
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Turning to voluntary adoption agencies, I reassure the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, that we are clear that these organisations have an important and central role to play in new regional agencies. That is why we have ensured that all the projects we are funding include voluntary adoption agencies. I am delighted that two-thirds of all voluntary adoption agencies are already involved.
We are committed to ensuring that the move to regional adoption agencies does not adversely impact on voluntary agencies and that they see it as a positive opportunity. Understandably, a number have raised legitimate concerns about their role in regional adoption agencies. But I am pleased to say that it is clear from the expressions of interest we have received and the projects we are funding that VAAs are being involved in a number of ways and have clearly been party to some fruitful discussions about how they can expand their involvement.
We absolutely believe that smaller, very specialist VAAs continue to have an important role to play. The service they provide in recruiting adopters, particularly for some of our most vulnerable and complex children, will still be very much needed in the new regional agencies. We will keep this area closely under review and will monitor it because we are determined to ensure that the excellence and expertise offered by voluntary adoption agencies is at the heart of this new agenda.