Agency decision makers (ADMs) reversed 1,010 decisions to place children for adoption in England in 2025-26, up 17% on the previous year, with increasing numbers of reversals due to lack of adopters.
The number of adoption reversals rose to a six-year high in 2025-26 on the back of the growing shortage of adopters in England.
Agency decision makers (ADMs) reversed 1,010 decisions to place children for adoption last year, according to the latest adoption and special guardianship (ASG) data produced by the charity Coram for the Department for Education (DfE).
This was 17% up on the 860 registered in 2024-25 and the highest number recorded in the dataset, since 2019-20, when it stood at 1,070.
The rise in the number of ADM reversal decisions appears to have been driven by a shortage of adopters. While in 2023-24 and 2024-25, the failure to find adopters for the child accounted for 8% and 11% of reversals, respectively, this rose to 27% in 2025-26.
The most common specified reason was that the court did not make a placement order (PO), which accounted for 28% of cases, compared with 30% in 2024-25. The ASG data, which is collected from councils, also showed a fall in the number of POs, from 3,210 in 2024-25 to 3,040 in 2025-26.
About the agency decision maker role
The ADM is a senior person within an adoption agency who should be a social worker with at least three years’ post-qualifying experience in child care social work and has knowledge and experience of permanency planning for children, adoption and child care law and practice.
The role’s functions include deciding whether a child should be placed for adoption, prospective adopters are suitable to adopt, or a child should be placed with specific adopters.
Growing adopter shortage and fewer adoptions
The ASG data has shown a growing gap between the number of children with a placement order (PO) waiting to be placed and the number of approved adopters waiting for a match over the past three years.
During that time, the number of approved adopters waiting fell from 2,240 to 1,400, while the number of children waiting with a PO rose from 2,110 to 3,010.
As of 31 March 2026, 2,060 children were involved in active family finding for whom 1,580 adopter families were needed. However, just 640 adopter families were involved in active family finding at the same time, a shortfall of 940, up from 750 a year earlier.
This was reflected in a 10% fall in the number of adoption orders made in 2025-26 (2,730), compared with the 3,040 for 2024-25 recorded by the DfE in its annual looked-after children’s statistics, a drop which follows four years of stability in the figure.
Increasing waits for children
The ASG data also showed increasing waits for children. As of 31 March 2026, 1,560 children waiting with a PO had been in care for at least 18 months, up 13% on the previous year (1,380).
There was an even sharper rise, of 19%, in the number of children who had been waiting with a PO for at least 12 months, which rose from 790 to 940 in 2025-26.
As in previous years, the majority of children waiting for extended periods with a PO had so-called harder to place (HTP) characteristics: they were aged five or over, boys, disabled, from an ethnic minority (excluding white minorities) or part of a sibling group.
However, the proportion of HTP children waiting more than 18 months after entering care fell from 72% to 70%, while their share of those who had been waiting more than 12 months with a PO dropped from 75% to 72%, in 2025-26.
Special guardianship order numbers also decline
As with adoption orders, the number of special guardianship orders (SGOs) also fell last year, from 4,110 in 2024-25 (according to the DfE’s looked-after children’s statistics) to 3,930 in 2025-26.
However, the 2025-26 total was broadly in line with the number recorded by the DfE annually from 2020-21 to 2023-24. Over a five-year period (2021-22 to 2025-26), the ASG data showed:
- A rise in the proportion of children aged five or over at the time of the SGO, from 52% to 54%;
- A rise in the proportion of SGOs involving children from an ethnic minority, excluding white minorities, from 17% to 19%;
- A fall in the proportion of SGOs involving a sibling group, from 45% to 43%;
- A rise in the proportion of SGOs granted to grandparents, from 52% to 54%;
- A fall in the proportion of SGOs granted to former foster carers, from 14% to 10%.
Campaign seeks to tackle adoption ‘misconceptions’
The news comes as Adoption England – the DfE-funded body that oversees the work of regional adoption agencies (RAAs) – launched its annual campaign to encourage prospective adopters to come forward.
Commenting on the decline in the number of adoptions, an Adoption England spokesperson said: “The decline in numbers of people coming forward to adopt has led to a rise in the number of children with a placement order not placed with an adoptive family, and therefore a growing number of children who have the plan of adoption reversed as adoptive families cannot be found. It has also led to an increase in time to find an adoptive family for those who do go on to be adopted.
“There are complex societal factors for this decline in adopters coming forward, such as a declining birth rate, fewer children per household, an ageing society and the impact of the cost of living.
“However, we also know that many people considering adoption worry that it might not be the right time or that they haven’t got the ‘perfect’ circumstances. Our You Can Adopt recruitment campaign challenges misconceptions about this and reassures people that support is available along the way to prepare them.”
More children ‘finding stability with families’
For the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), president Ann Graham said: “There are ongoing difficulties in recruiting adopters, with matching and differing approaches in the family courts all playing into the fall we have seen in placement orders.
“We are also seeing more children and young people finding long-term stability via family-based care, which speaks to wider reforms and the prioritisation of kinship in children’s social care.”
This is a reference to the government’s children’s social care reforms, which are designed to ensure more children are looked after by their parents or in kinship care, through improved support for families and their wider networks.
Source: Community Care
