• The government appointed an adoption adviser – former Barnados CEO Martin Narey. 

• The government has published league tables of the number of children adopted in each council area and the time each adoption too. 

• There have also been interventions to the guidelines surrounding the adoption of black/mixed race children by white parents. In principle at least the government feels there should be no barriers to cross-ethnic adoption. 

• There are further measures in the pipeline including a leaner, less bureaucratic process to vet prospective parents. There is talk of the walls between fostering and adoption being broken down. 

• Adoption was in the last Queen’s speech and is firmly on the agenda. 

The problem is that these are really just gestures in a situation that requires dramatic action. The government has shied away from putting in place measures to reveal the real truth. This is why we want to see a government-led, enforcement authority to oversee the behaviours of Local Councils and make things more transparent. We know anecdotally that parents who’ve been approved to adopt a child currently in care cannot do so as their council does not have the resources to finalise the paperwork. Desperate parents are just as confused when their adoption case worker says that the new guidelines do not apply to their council. There are endless examples and while we’re not saying they could all be solved by a central authority, we know that such a body would make councils up their game.  We do however feel that the government is still fudging the issue of hard figures: there is no way of quantifying how many people have been denied the chance to adopt at all stages of the process. We don’t know the reasons for applications being refused. We note that despite announcements proclaiming change, the government has not yet even added a question in the Home Study asking if the prospective parents wish to adopt a child from a different race. This information is essential to understanding where the process is going wrong. The government’s way out is to name and shame councils and cut their budgets. Frankly it’s gutless and pathetic. It should be noted that before the rise in adoption rates, adoption was at its lowest level in ten years. As we say, it’s a long, long game. It’s an even longer one for the children who are waiting. Think about it:

• Most of the children awaiting adoption will never be placed into a family.
• From the age of eight onwards, 99% of children up for adoption will not be placed.

Let’s examine what the government has done: it has introduced ‘Special Guardianship’, giving parental responsibility to a guardian, who tends to be a family member or friend. This is supposed to allow certain steps such as the costly Home Study approval, to be skipped, immediately after the links from the birth parents have ceased to exist legally. It’s a good concept, however in practice it means that while the number of children in foster care has decreased that the number of adoptions has not correspondingly risen. Furthermore,

• Special Guardianship breakdowns are not recorded.
• Successful voluntary adoption agencies have been asked to take on some of the work of poorly performing councils temporarily, thus massaging the figures. 

The number of babies available for adoption appears to have decreased.  The government will say this is because less of them enter the system; however the fact that should not be overlooked is that the time to adopt has not decreased so any babies entering the care system are likely to be toddlers before they are adopted. If they are adopted. Finally we have the ‘defenestration’ of Tim Loughton, who had acted as Children Minister for two years and Shadow Children Minister for seven. Tim and I have had our arguments about how far he could go in the review of the system, however he’s shown more commitment than anyone in what is a very tough position. He championed social work and initiatied controversial reforms to speed up adoptions. And he genuinely tried to do so by involving all stakeholders from campaigning groups-  like ours-  to the children themselves to adoptive parents, prospective parents and social services. Why not let him carry on his work and build on his knowledge and passion? He was making some small, but very significant breakthroughs.

Now Edward Timpson will have to pick up and run with it. I hope he does try and run but I am fearful of the energy being lost, the time lost, and the young lives that are caught in between. Farewell Tim and thank you for caring. The issue is just as urgent, poignant and tragic. We need to run faster.

Not surprisingly my childhood continued to influence me. I have always been concerned about the environment, our planet, sustainability issues and the fact that there are so many children in this world just waiting for a home. For a number of years I held a major global position at Greenpeace. When my husband and I were married we were not desperate to have children. However, there was an unspoken sense that we would, and it might be a little unconventional.

We are, to all intents and purposes, both fertile. But we chose to adopt.  That point of view immediately put us at odds with the chattering classes who declared how wonderful it was to have their own children. It also put us on a road that often seemed to lead to nowhere; a route that appeared to be laden with booby traps and endless obstacles. They dug up every inch of our lives. Yet instead of each step making it easier, it became harder.

I began to wonder if this was actually an attempt by the UK government to make adoption difficult. When our local council told us we were ‘too white’ to adopt one of the many mixed race children available, we knew something was rotten in the system.

Many people give up at that point. In fact, many people give up long before this. Just the fact that you are being judged constantly, almost as if you are a criminal, makes it tough. My husband and I were lucky. We had the financial resources, the know-how from working in big business, and most of all, a united belief that we were not going to let them beat us.

When we found the route to international adoption stalling we took matters into our own hands and went to Mexico to find our baby ourselves. It was the beginning a road trip, that would be both physically and emotionally gruelling as well as funny and poignant. We met selfless people running orphanages, mothers who had no choice but to give up their babies in a strongly Catholic country and, in a Starbucks off a highway, a lawyer who traded in babies and had convinced himself it was not only legal but moral. We met people who had nothing but wanted to do everything they could to help us. We took our marriage to a place that isn’t easy and it came back intact.

Needless to say, we didn’t accept the lawyer’s offer but lots of couples do. We did it legally, at times sailing very close to the wind in our discussions with various governments. And when we brought our daughter home thinking she was safe at last, she was arrested at Heathrow. The nightmare never stopped. And for many people it is too much to bear.

Speaking to other couples about their experiences with adoption I realised something had to be done. There was a lot of suffering going on but not very much adoption. I decided to write Mexican Takeaway because I felt that most of the books written about adoption were overly sentimental and personal, rather than inclusive.

Adoption is still in many ways a taboo. I want it to be something that is acceptable, natural and, most of all, accessible. Yes, there have to be rules, but right now the rules are inhumane and immoral. They do not work. I decided that at the very least I could try and campaign to change some key ones so set up Adoption with Humanity.  Our aim is to transform the process of adoption into something that is not about forms and unworkable rules, but puts the interests of the children, the adoptive parents and birthmother at its core.

Black and mixed race children wait three times longer than white children to be adopted. For too long social workers in the UK have been implementing what are effectively ghettoisation policies where children must be placed with a family of the same ‘culture’ despite the availability of a loving, stable home in another ‘culture’. Meanwhile they languish in foster care scrapping for a life, while edging closer to their ‘use by’ date, the point at which nobody will want to adopt them because they have become too ‘difficult’ and unlovable.

While the government’s shift on this is a step in the right direction, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Only one-fifth of children waiting for adoption are from minority ethnic families. Meanwhile we have an adoption system that itself is a victim of neglect. It is hard to see how any change can be implemented by social workers without the necessary training. Yes, at times their decisions border on the ridiculous but what is even more absurd in when the DfE points the finger of blame at these messengers and refuses to be accountable for its part in this inhumane and at times, immoral, circus.

If this wasn’t enough to deal with, the lack of any coherent government strategy means it’s about to get worse. Cash strapped councils have always known they can save money by keeping children in care rather than helping them towards adoption. The cuts they are now being forced to make will only exacerbate the situation. While money can be saved in the short-term, the long-term cost to a society that already cannot afford to care for its neglected children may well be greater than anything the government has budgeted for.