It’s a fairly standard route depending on which local authority you use - the area I live in and the area I work in both have used direct adoption for as long as I’ve been here. My placing authority did POA, which from my point of view was much preferable.
With POA authority to adopt has already been granted, so the legal process post placement is relatively straightforward. Parental rights have already been removed so while the birth family are still notified of proceedings and have the option of attending/being represented there’s not the emotional pull of them
losing their child, because that’s happened already. It also means final contact will most likely have taken place pre-placement. If the birth family are objecting to the permanence process, you know because they’ll have objected at the time the permanence order was granted. In saying that, because the local authority legal process is already done, the cost of the adoption part falls to you, which in our case meant a significant legal bill - but we could also chose our own lawyers.
With direct adoption the birth parents retain parental rights up until the court date, so you may have to continue contact with them post placement. You also have the full legal process of removing parental rights at the same time as the adoption being approved, the removal of parental rights can be very emotive and the process can drag on abit, which brings its own stress.
Local authorities sometimes prefer direct adoption because they can control the legal process, in that if there is any dissent from the family the process can get both costly and complex. It also means one court date rather than two, in that it’s unlikely a sheriff would agree to removal of parental rights but not agree the adoption. It also can be easier for the birth family to have one legal process to go through.
It can take a while post placement though to sort out the legal part, and you’d have possibly to agree contact with the birth family, final contact and various professionals meetings to attend while it sorts out. With POA we had the adoption hearing 13 weeks post placement, which wouldn’t have been possible with direct adoption.
It might be worth asking why the recommendation is for direct adoption, sometimes there are good reasons for going down that route so it’s worth checking it.