Jimbob - Panel is a legal requirement
In many agencies, the decision maker DOES sit on the panel , so applicants know the decision immediately.
In most SS, adoption is very very low down the priority list . In some of them , theres a culture of making everything really slow, to keep the foster carers ( who are seen as a but uppity and demanding ) and the adoptive parents ( who are desperate ) in their place .
They don't have any real skills to contribute to the process, so they replace it with non evidence based knowledge and pointless bureaucracy .
It's about power and control . The social workers don't actually have any power over the people that they came into the job to " help" , who they see as the " deserving poor " . Of course they end up feeling that most of " the poor " are in fact " undeserving " and they get bitter and burnt out .
In fact most of the time, no one wants their " help" , they just see them as a bloody nuisance. So one of the few groups of people they can control are prospective adopters.
I mean, most of us find most of them a bloody nuisance too, but we don't have the power to tell them to piss off, unlike their other clents.
The worse they are are their job, the more they need you to be humble and grateful and never question anything they say or do.
That's why everyone on the adoption boards here will advise you to NEVER complain about anything. It's not a very self critical culture and they don't do reflective practice .
Of course this isn't an issues with the good ones, who have the skills to work in a person centred , collaborative way with you. But sadly they are few and far between .
So that's a long way of saying - you just to need to smile and nod at the process. You can't make it go any faster .