Local authorities to receive extra £30m to help speed up adoptions

The funding, to be formally announced in Wednesday's budget, will cover the costs of finding out of area adoptive placements

By Luke Stevenson on July 6, 2015 in Children, Fostering and adoption

Local authorities in England will receive an extra £30m to help speed up adoptions, it has been reported.

The funding is expected to be formally announced in Wednesday’s summer budget and will cover the inter-agency fee usually incurred by councils when they place a child for adoption beyond their local authority borders.

It is hoped that by covering the £27,000 cost, the government will be helping agencies to find out of area families more quickly for the 3,000 children currently awaiting adoption.

Third major announcement

The funding marks the third major announcement the government has made on adoption since the general election.

Local authority and voluntary adoption agencies were told they would have to merge under new plans for regional adoption agencies, and this transition was backed by another £4.5m in government funding.

This follows significant investment in adoption under the previous coalition government, which allocated £150m for the adoption reform grant and £19.3m for the adoption support fund.