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Introduction
This report analyses the responses received by the Scottish Government to the Adoption Support Services and Allowances (Scotland) Regulations consultation. This was the first of a suite of consultations on regulations associated with the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007. The Consultation period ran from the 9 th of June 2008 to the 1 st of August 2008, and 28 respondents participated in this consultation activity; of which, 14 were local authorities, 10 were organizations, and 4 were individual responses.
Some respondents provided general comments on the regulations as well as answering the specific questions. These general comments were as follows:
It was suggested that,
"It may be easier to follow if the regulations dealing with adoption support plans were to come earlier, or if they followed Regulation 3, rather than coming in after the Adoption Allowances section of the regulations. Regulation 3 relates to a specific area of assessment of the need for support, i.e. identification of the authority responsible for services when adoption parties move from one local authority to another."
"The regulations relating to Chapter 4 of the Act, Sections 45-49 (Adoption Support Plans) lack detail and perhaps should be placed following the regulations relating to assessment for adoption support, as the support plan should be a product of any assessment."
"The Regulations do not seem to flow in a logical order. For example, Regulation 3 (Adoption Support services for persons outside the area) may more helpfully come at the end rather than the beginning."
"Regulation 3 is quite hard to follow, as s9 of the Act does not appear to mention services "outside the area" and covers assessments of needs. The first regulation of substance speaks of this before there is any regulation dealing with support services, access to these and assessment. This appears illogical."
"The structure and order of the draft regulations should be changed to separate out the regulations about allowances and the regulations about adoption support services. The provisions in the Act are separate: s.71; and Chapters 1 and 4 of Part 1 respectively. Although allowances may generally be described as part of the adoption support system, the gateway to them is different from the gateway to adoption support services. So regulations 4 to 10 should be separated out from regulations 3 and 11 to 16."
Some respondents raised a question on resources;
" What additional resources will be made available to local authorities to provide this proposed greater level of service? Will local authorities be required to promote the right of parties to adoption to have their needs assessed?"
"The abolition of section 9 imposes an additional burden upon local authorities to provide adoption support services on an ongoing basis. This burden should be appropriately resourced at the time of implementation of the Act."
It was recommended that adoption support services should be: counselling, advice, information and financial support as well as other services prescribed by regulation in England and Wales including assistance in arranging contact; services to meet the therapeutic needs of children; assistance such as training to adopters to meet special needs; respite care; services to birth parents.
"The permissive nature of legislation with regard to the provision of services, other than the assessment, is reminiscent of earlier Community Care legislation which raised expectations but was unable to meet them."
"It would be helpful if the Regulations provided some indication as to the nature of the services being referred to. Without this, there is likely to be widely varying interpretations, perhaps resulting significantly differing levels of assessment and provision of services to the parties included in the legislation, dependent on where they."
"For the new services to be real and meaningful then there must be considerable extra budgetary resources made available to local authorities for this purpose. The economic benefits of resources going into this would, in my view, eventually be seen to great and the most efficacious way to ameliorate some of the worst effects of the consequences of instability for children."
Some responses discussed a national strategy for adoption support and allowances
"it is vital that there should be a national protocol to assist local authorities in looking at this matter in a spirit of partnership and in the light of the realities of modern day living […] The reality is that some local authorities will take no account of any outgoings other than mortgage and council tax. Others may be more liberal."
"the adoption allowances system could do with a re-think as practice varies between agencies and also the amount paid by them. There are also difficulties when unforeseen problems arise, or foreseen problems that were not considered at the time of matching and placing. There should be a national scheme for agencies or National Standards or Criteria to ensure equity between adoptive families.
"Even if there is no system of national minimum adoption allowances, there should be national frameworks for:
- the determination of allowances, and
- means testing for allowances, assuming that is required."
On the topic of adoption allowances, general comments included:
"[adopters] do the same job as foster carers only its permanent and [adopters] cannot give the child back, so all adopters should get adoption allowance"
"Make it easy rather than difficult to get allowances for the hard work adopters put in. The tone of the regulations has a negative rather than supportive feel, a kind of series of obstacles in order to get the allowances, and with heavy sanctions e.g. refunding of allowances. How many adopters will set out purposely to defraud!"
"Agency decisions about allowances and about some adoption support services are decisions 'relating to the adoption of a child' in terms of s.14 of the Act. The considerations or principles in that section therefore apply, including welfare and views of children. This should be explicit in these regulations as a reminder, as s.6 of the 1978 Act currently is in reg 11(5) of the Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 1996."
"The schemes set out in the regulations for 'assessments' for allowances and for adoption support seem unnecessarily complex"
"The regulations conflate periodic payments (allowances) and one-off payments, and call them all allowances. This is not helpful, particularly as it may restrict local authorities' discretion to make one-off payments."
"There is no need for the regulations to deal with one-off payments as allowances. The provisions of the Act give enough authority for such payments in s.73 and s.12 payments are part of the adoption support services system, not the allowances system."
"Consideration has to be given to a system for 'appeals' about refusal of allowances, amounts of allowances; variation and termination of allowances; decisions about assessments for of need for adoption support services and reviews of these. Both systems, for allowances and for adoption support services, need to be accessible and transparent."
Scottish Government Response
Consideration to the order of the regulations in light of respondents' general comments has been made. We will rearrange the regulations so that regulations which are stand alone, and refer to both adoption support services and allowance will be early in the regulations. These will be followed by those regulations which refer to adoption support services and then those that refer to allowances. The regulations will also be split into "parts" to help them to be more accessible.
The other general comments made by respondents, such as those on a National Adoption Allowance, will be dealt with throughout the rest of this document.
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