A national adoption register will be given statutory backing. Mr Hutton will say the legislation should increase the number of adoptions from 3,000 to 4,000 a year - and more than that in the longer term. The government will claim that hundreds of children a year can be given a better start in life if they can be moved more quickly from council care into adoptive families. We have got to get it right. This must not go through on a groundswell of public reaction to a particular case.
Children are too important for that.
Social workers are perceived by the public as interfering, ineffective and excessively bureaucratic, according to a survey published yesterday as the Local Government Association launched a campaign to restore public confidence. More than one in six jobs in social care work is now vacant and two-thirds of social services departments have reported difficulties in obtaining staff.