Adoption and Children Act 2002

The Adoption and Children Act modernises the whole existing legal framework for domestic and Intercountry adoption. It also introduces a new legal order, Special Guardianship, which offers legal permanence for children for whom adoption is not suitable. The Act includes provisions to:

• put the needs of the child at the centre of the adoption process by aligning adoption law with the Children Act 1989 to make the child's welfare the paramount consideration in all decisions to do with adoption;
• encourage more people to adopt Looked After Children by helping to ensure that the support they need is available. There will be a new, clear duty on local authorities to provide an Adoption Support Service and a new right for people affected by adoption to request and receive an assessment of their needs for adoption support services;
• support the Government's efforts to build confidence in the adoption process and encourage more people to come forward to adopt by enabling the Secretary of State to establish a new independent review mechanism for prospective adopters who feel they have been turned down unfairly;
• enable unmarried couples to apply to adopt jointly, thereby widening the pool of potential adoptive parents. It will be for adoption agencies, and ultimately the courts, to decide whether an individual couple is suitable to adopt. In order to be approved as adoptive parents, a couple would need to prove that they have a stable and lasting relationship and that they can provide a loving family environment for a child;
• provide for a more consistent approach to access to information held in adoption agency records. This aims to ensure that the release of sensitive identifying information about adopted people and birth families happens in a proper manner and takes account of their views wherever possible;
• help to cut harmful delays in the adoption process through an Adoption and Children Act Register to suggest links between children and approved adopters, and through measures requiring courts to draw up timetables for adoption cases;
• strengthen the safeguards for adoption by improving the legal controls on intercountry adoption, arranging adoptions and advertising children for adoption;
• introduce a new Special Guardianship order to provide security and permanence for children who cannot return to their birth families, but for whom adoption is not the most suitable option.
• place duty on local authorities to arrange advocacy services for looked after children and young people leaving care in the context of complaints

The full text of the Act is available online at: www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2002/20020038.htm or on the BAAF website at http://www.baaf.org.uk/info/lpp/law/sum