Adoptions
Number of adoptions increase by over 4 per cent
Adoption orders by date of court order, England and Wales
There were 4,939 children entered into the Adopted Children Register following court orders made in 2008. This was 207 more than in 2007, representing an increase of 4.4 per cent. This is the first year that an increase in adoption numbers has been seen since 2004. The number of adoptions is 7 per cent greater that in 1998 and is at the highest level since 2005.
The proportion of children adopted who were aged 1 to 4 has been steadily increasing over the past decade. Fifty-seven per cent of all children adopted in 2008 were aged 1 to 4 compared with 55 per cent in 2007 and 34 per cent in 1998. In 2008, the proportion of children adopted who were aged 10 to 14 decreased to 12 per cent from 13 per cent in 2007.
In 2008, 78 per cent of the children entered into the Adopted Children Register were born outside of marriage, the same as in 2007. Of those entered into the Adopted Children Register in 2008, only 16 per cent were born within marriage compared to 17 per cent in 2007.
Longer term trends based on the date of entry in the Adopted Children Register show that the number of adoptions in England and Wales fell rapidly during the 1970s (there were 21,495 adoptions in 1971) and continued to fall steadily over the 1980s and 1990s.
In the 1970s, there was a rapid decline in the number of children available for adoption following the introduction of legal abortion in the Abortion Act 1967 and the implementation of the Children Act 1975. This latter Act gave the court power to treat an adoption application as an application for a custodianship order if the court considered this to be in the child’s best interests.
On 30 December 2005, the Adoption and Children Act 2002 was fully implemented. It replaced the Adoption Act 1976 and modernised the legal framework for adoption in England and Wales. The Act provides for an adoption order to be made in favour of single people, married couples and, for the first time, civil partners, same-sex couples and unmarried couples. The Act also introduced Special Guardianship to provide permanence for children who cannot return to their birth families, but for whom adoption is not the most suitable option.
Notes:
Children are defined as being under 18 years of age.
Data on adoptions are derived from the Adopted Children Register, and are based on adoption orders made in England and Wales. The data here relates to those cases notified by the courts to the Registrar General and entered onto the Adopted Children Register in a given year.
Adoptions figures are produced on two definitions: date of entry into the Adopted Children Register and date of Court Order. The chart uses data by the date of court order. The court order data are seen as preferable as there may be a time lag between the date of court order and the subsequent entry into the Register.
printer-friendly
Adoptions data