More children are being placed by the national adoption register, including its first group of four siblings.
Baaf Adoption and Fostering, which has run the register since
December, has matched 33 children with adoptive families in the
past three months. This compares with 35 in the first six months
after it
took over from the Norwood adoption agency.
Norwood made just 132 matches in more than three years. However, the register, which deals mainly with hard-to-place children, was reformed when Baaf took over.
It no longer holds details of all adopters and all children with a care plan of adoption in England and Wales, which allows it to focus on cases where a local or regional placement is not being pursued.
Baaf said it had also cut bureaucracy by allowing social workers to electronically submit adoption forms to the register rather than re-enter information they had collected.
The four siblings ranged in age from five and a half to 11. Andy Stott, manager of the register, said several groups of three siblings and many pairs had also been matched.
The government did not set targets for the number of matches when Baaf took over because of changes to the way it operated, but this could be reviewed.
