Adoption

Abstract

A legal adoption is effected by an adoption order which extinguishes the parental responsibility of the natural parents and vests it in the adopters. The law of adoption is contained in the Adoption Act (AA) 1976 (as amended by the Children Act (CA) 1989). As adoption proceedings are family proceedings the court in those proceedings can make any s.8 CA 1989 order (see 13.3). The Adoption Rules 1984 govern procedure and the Adoption Agencies Regulations 1983 and various government circulars regulate practice. However, as a result of widespread discussion and consultation on adoption since 1989 when an inter-departmental review of adoption was commenced (see the discussion papers at the end of this chapter), reforms of the law are proposed. In October 1992 a consultative document was published (Review of Adoption Law: Report to Ministers of An Inter-Departmental Working Group) and in 1993 the Government published a White Paper (Adoption the Future, Cm 2288). This was followed in March 1996 by a consultative document (Adoption: A Service for Children) containing a draft bill making important changes to adoption, including, for example, the introduction of a ‘placement order’, a new welfare principle and changes to the grounds for dispensing with consent.