XI. Going to Panel

When your application forms and documentation are in order, all the reports from outside are filed, and the social worker has written her final assessment, it is time to go to panel for approval.

The agency is supposed to give you the completed Form F, and as much of the supporting reports as they can without breaching the confidentiality of other people, well before your application is due to be heard by the panel. There is scope for factual errors in the form, and you should have the chance to check it, and you have the right to register a disagreement with parts where the social worker gives her own interpretation of your situation. Any disagreement or comments you want to make must be registered within 28 days. If you want to make representations in person to the panel you may well be given the chance, but there is no legal requirement for you to be allowed to, except in Scotland. If you don’t want to make any representations (i.e., you are happy with the Form F and other documents as they are) you can waive the 28 day period and maybe speed up the panel’s consideration of your application. There is a place on Form F for your signatures after the final social worker’s assessment.

You will be told beforehand when the panel meeting is. In Scotland the prospective adopters must be invited to appear in person before the panel when their case is discussed. Some agencies in England and Wales invite the applicants to appear or will let you appear if you ask to. You can ask to appear, especially if you think you look less promising on paper than you really are and the social worker thinks it might improve your chances of approval.

The Panel

What is an adoption panel? Who are the members? What do they do?

The panel is a statutory committee which every adoption and fostering agency in the country must have, and which makes recommendations to a senior designated officer in the agency as to whether a child should be found a new family, who should be accepted onto the agency’s register of approved adopters, and which child goes to which family.

Panels do not, technically, approve or reject applications to adopt; they merely recommend to the agency. A specified employee of the agency then makes the final and official decision and informs the applicants. The panel makes its recommendations based on information from social workers, but they are not a rubber stamp for the social worker. They can and do decide against the social worker’s recommendations. It has happened to us.

Panels do not grant adoption applications; that’s done by the courts.

The Panel’s Members

Panel members are people with a lot of power and responsibility. They are almost all very conscious of the responsibility and work hard to be sure they make the right decisions.

The composition of an adoption and fostering panel is set by law. A panel consists of:

A doctor, who is one of the agency’s medical advisors,
An elected member of the local authority council (i.e., a local councillor) in the case of a local authority agency; or a member of a voluntary agency’s management committee,
Two social workers in the agency’s employ,
At least three independent members of the public, including if possible, an adult adoptee and an adoptive parent (a birth parent is not specified, but many panels include one),
Other members if desired, up to a maximum of 11,
Panels must include at least one man and one woman, and they are supposed to reflect the ethnic composition of the community they serve.

Members cannot serve on a panel for more than two consecutive three-year terms, but can be reappointed after three years’ rest (the medical advisor is exempted from this regulation). There is a quorum of six for valid panel meetings, which must include either the chair or vice-chair plus one social worker. If two or three local authorities operate a joint panel the composition regulations are slightly different.

An agency may have more than one panel, depending on how many cases they have to deal with.

In spite of the statutory composition of the panel, they are or can be very much the creatures of the social services director or head of the adoption and fostering team, since the agency’s officers control the appointment of almost all of the members. For that reason I would hesitate to call them independent. Panel members are unpaid but do receive expenses.

The Panel Meeting

This is it. This is the day you’ve been waiting for. You knew it was coming, but you couldn’t let yourselves believe it was really going to happen. Official figures show that 94% of adoption applications which get as far as the Panel are accepted, so there is very little to worry about. Your application will not have been put forward to the panel unless your social worker thought you were likely to be accepted (or the match with the child would be approved), so “panel day” should not be a worry for you (but of course you will be terrified). Your social worker will attend the meeting to present your case, and usually leaves as soon as possible to telephone you with the results, unless there is some doubt about whether the agency will go along with the panel’s recommendation. You didn’t eat any lunch nor sleep last night (good training, that!). If you have told your friends and family, the phone has been ringing all day asking if you’ve heard yet (why can’t they leave the line free!?).

There are three types of Panel meeting which could apply to you now.

A general approval meeting, where you are being put forward for approval as adopters for a particular range of children, but with no individual child in mind,
A meeting to approve the match between you and a particular child, where you have already been approved in principle,
A combined meeting, where your approval as adopters and your matching with a particular child are both considered at the same meeting.

A meeting of type one will of course be of the Panel for the agency you have applied to, possibly your own local authority. Where a particular child is in question, the meeting will be of the Adoption Panel for the child’s agency, not necessarily the agency you originally applied to.