Government baby-snatchers

Briefing. The Family Courts, who meet in secret, are a major scandal and allow these appalling practices to continue. The idea that, in non-extreme cases, local authority social workers can do better for children than their natural parents is another attack on the family.

From CFNews: A council has admitted receiving Government money under a controversial 'adoption target' scheme that rewards the removal of children from their parents. Hammersmith and Fulham council, in west London, was paid £500,000 as a reward for placing more than 100 children for adoption in three years. The council is the first to acknowledge publicly a payout under the target scheme. It said that its social workers had 'pulled out all the stops' and 'cut down on the amount of bureaucracy' to boost the numbers. They exceeded their goal of 101 adoptions, securing 106 by this month's deadline. In almost every case, the birth parents fought to keep their children but were defeated in the family courts. advertisement A spokesman for the Tory-controlled council said: 'Nearly all of these children were adopted compulsorily through the courts. In each of these cases the courts decided that adoption was the right thing for the child.'

The councillor in charge of the campaign, Antony Lillis, said that the children had had the 'least promising' start in life, and were more likely to 'go on to achieve economic well-being' with their new adoptive parents. Campaigners said that some babies might have been taken unnecessarily from birth parents of limited means. John Hemming, the Liberal Democrat MP and chairman of Justice for Families, said: 'I am concerned that Hammersmith and Fulham may have removed children to hit its target.'

The council announced its success in a press release headed 'Adoption target met'. Its disclosure appeared to contradict the claims of Kevin Brennan, the children's minister, who seemed to deny the existence of adoption targets when he said earlier this year: 'The only national adoption targets, which ended in 2006, were on the number of adoptions of children who were already in care and waiting to be placed for adoption, and on the speeding up of this. There was never a financial incentive for local authorities to meet these national targets.' [Sunday Telegraph]