Why did the minister get his data from???

[snail1973]

Really interesting reading all the posts about the government's report on changing guidance to allow more transracial adoptions.

I read the article on bbc.com and wondered where this data comes from

Mr Loughton (Children's Minister) said it was "unacceptable" that the number of children placed for adoption had dropped by 15% this year

Have they? I have not read this anywhere else. In fact all we hear is that there are more children being freed for adoption. I know this isn't the same as the number actually being placed but I am suprised to hear that placements have gone down.

any ideas you clever lot?

Yes, I was surprised to read that too. No insights here, I'm afraid, but I'll watch this thread with interest.

Data is from National Statistics office, though by my calculations its nearer 7%

This is the number of adoption orders granted in recent years:

2009 4,725
2008 5,065
2007 4,637
2006 4,978
2005 5,556
2004 5,555

However teh number of looked after childrne adopted this year which is probably what he's refering to is 3,200 in 2010 which is a 100 less than 2009 (which isn;t 15%) will do a bit more rootling around...

Thanks kew. Where did you find the 2010 data?

We have requested an investigation by Full Fact (www.fullfact.org/). Hope they' ll look into this. It's always good to get the numbers right!

Maybe they are excluding step parent adoptions? Just a guess.....

It certainly isn't obvious from the numbers you can get hold of publically where th e15% comes from.