Children considerations

Section 46 of the Adoption and Children Act 2002 empowers a court to make an Adoption Order once a Placement Order has been made, but Section 47(b)(ii) of the Act prevents the court from making the Order if it is opposed by a parent. However, by Section 47(5) that parent may not oppose the making of the order without the leave of the court, and, by Section 47(7), the court cannot give leave unless satisfied that there has been a change in circumstances since the Placement Order was made.

1. Re P (Adoption: Leave Provisions) [2007] EWCA Civ 616 established that an application for leave involves a two-stage process:

(1) the court has to be satisfied that there has been “a change of circumstances of a nature and degree sufficient, on the facts of the particular case, to open the door to the exercise of the judicial discretion to permit the parents to defend the adoption proceedings”.

(2) If so satisfied, ‘the door to the exercise of a judicial discretion to permit the parents to defend the adoption proceedings is opened, and the decision whether or not to grant leave is governed by section 1 of the 2002 Act.”

Courts are also referred to the recent case of Somerset County Council v NHS Somerset Clinical Commissioning [2002[ EWFC 31 in which it was stated that there had been a breach of the Adoption Agencies Regulations 2005 in that no report had been obtained on the health of the children.