Recylcing Children: The £36million Council Child Catchers
WE all know the scene: the expectant mother in the last throes of labour, the nervous father trying desperately to be of some use, the doctors and nurses flitting in and out (if the parents are lucky) and the council staff, waiting in the background to pick up a reward from the Government.
Hang on, the council staff? A reward?
Well, that’s according to the Mail, which reveals that New Labour’s plans to lift more children out of the care system by rewarding councils who hit adoption targets, have seriously backfired.
With £36million in grants on offer, councils are targeting the most ‘adoptable’ babies, with children under the age of four being taken away in the biggest numbers. Indeed, over 900 newborn babies are now being removed from their mothers each year, an incredible 300 per cent increase in around a decade. The Mail also reports that in the past fortnight alone, eight newborn infants have been taken from their mothers in Newcastle and North Tyneside.
Indeed, it is alleged that social workers, eager to bag the bonuses, are even selecting babies before they are born.
Lib Dem MP John Hemming is concerned. Says he: “This smacks of social engineering on a grand scale. The offer of monetary rewards for meeting the targets has created a frenzy among social workers. There are council targets for recycling rubbish and now targets for recycling children.”
Recycling children? So do blonde kids go in one box, and dark ones in another?
Posted: 2nd, July 2007 | In: Money Comments (2) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
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July 4th, 2007 at 12:41 am
Some Facts on Recylcing Children
Tony Blair set a target in England and Wales of a 50 per cent increase in the number of children adopted between 2000 and 2006. Latest figures show the target has not been reached and the rise is only 37.7 per cent.
* About 3,700 children were adopted in 2005-6, and although this was three per cent down on the previous year, the number of children aged one to four who were adopted showed a big rise.
* Some councils in England and Wales are taking babies from their parents and placing them in care before all other options had been exhausted - in order to meet government adoption targets.
* Local Authorities/Social Services dept’s reaching their PSA targets are given ‘huge financial rewards’
* More than 20 MPs have already signed an early day motion deploring the taking of babies from their mothers not for their welfare but simply to enable social workers to meet their government adoption targets.
* THE EDM 626 - That this House notes that local authorities and their staff are incentivised to ensure that children are adopted; is concerned about increasing numbers of babies being taken into care, not for the safety of the infant, but because they are easy to get adopted; and calls urgently for effective scrutiny of care proceedings to stop this from happening. (EDM)
http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=32301&SESSION=885
Note* Scotland, Ireland, Norway, Denmark and Germany have seen declines in the number of children adopted over the five years to 2002, but England and Wales and the Netherlands have seen increases of nearly one third of the same period.
Best
Fassit
http://www.fassit.co.uk/
July 2nd, 2007 at 10:41 am
what about the redheads?