Baby Care Proceedings Plateau at High Levels, Raising Fears of Unnecessary Adoptions

The proportion of infants caught up in care proceedings before their first birthday remains stubbornly high across England, according to newly released figures that have prompted fresh concern among experts about whether some of the youngest children are being permanently separated from their families without good reason.

Research carried out by academics at the universities of Lancaster and Oxford shows that care proceedings involving babies have climbed by 64% over the past twenty years, with roughly one in every 118 infants now affected. The data, which runs up to the 2024-25 period, reveals that cases reached a peak during the coronavirus pandemic before easing slightly and then levelling off at what researchers describe as a persistently elevated plateau.

The findings were shared with File on 4 Investigates, a BBC programme that examined how the family courts handle the youngest children entering the care system. The evidence suggests that while a minority of cases involve unambiguous danger to a child, a substantial share fall into a much greyer category, where poverty, addiction, poor housing and other pressures on families may have played a larger role than deliberate cruelty.

Professor Karen Broadhurst of Lancaster University, whose analysis underpins much of the research, estimates that only between a fifth and a quarter of care proceedings could be classified as "clear-cut" — situations where a baby has already suffered serious harm or abuse. The remainder, she argues, largely concern neglect within families facing complex difficulties, including drug and alcohol problems and insecure housing, circumstances that might have improved had the right support been available.

Those observations feed into a broader anxiety voiced by experts: that many babies might never have needed to enter care at all if help had been provided early enough. Because very young children who come into the system are far more likely to be adopted than older children, the consequences of that initial decision can be permanent. Adoption offers stability, but it also severs the legal tie between a child and their birth family for life, which is why government policy and adoption organisations alike insist it should only ever be a last resort.

Government statistics lend weight to the concern about how often adoption follows for the youngest children. According to the latest official figures, 72% of children adopted in England had entered care before their first birthday. Yet the route to adoption is rarely a matter of parental agreement. CoramBAAF, which represents professionals working in adoption and care, says that more than nine in ten adoptions proceed without written consent from the birth parents. Courts overruled parents' objections in just under half of those cases, while the rest were recorded as "unopposed" — a category in which many parents were advised against contesting the decision because their chances of success were considered slim.

Campaigners and some academics have seized on those numbers to argue that England is operating a system of modern-day "forced adoption". Broadhurst accepts that the phrase is politically charged and acknowledges that today's care system bears little resemblance to the coercive practices seen mainly between 1949 and 1976, for which the government recently issued an apology in England. Even so, she maintains the description captures something real: parents who do not agree with the decision, yet find themselves powerless to prevent the loss of contact with their child. She points out that even mothers and fathers who accept they cannot care for a baby at that moment often find it brutal to be told they will have little or no contact until the child turns eighteen.

The human cost of those decisions is illustrated by the experience of one birth mother, identified only as Jean, who told the programme she never wanted to relinquish her daughter, Tye, for adoption and describes what happened as forced. Her local council has said it followed a lawful process throughout.

Social workers sit at the centre of these emotionally fraught judgments, weighing the risk of intervening too soon against the danger of acting too late. One practitioner, whom the BBC is calling Tracy, described the daily dilemmas she and colleagues confront as they try to give families room to navigate a crisis while remaining alert to the possibility of future harm. She said the assessments are wide-ranging and detailed, requiring judgments about whether past and present evidence points to a likelihood of future risk. In some cases, she added, social workers encounter families so damaged by abuse and neglect that no one within them can safely raise a child.

The consequences of getting those calls wrong have been seared into public consciousness by notorious cases such as Baby P in north London and Sara Sharif in Woking, Surrey. Such tragedies serve as a reminder of why authorities err on the side of caution, yet they can also distort the wider picture, since most cases never attract headlines. The British Association of Social Workers told the programme that its members are striving to do their best despite rising caseloads and shrinking resources.

Against that backdrop, the BBC understands that new guidance for Family Court judges will be announced before the end of the year, aimed at significantly reducing the number of short-notice care hearings — proceedings convened within hours or days of a baby's birth. Such rushed hearings have been a particular source of criticism from experts, who argue that parents are given almost no opportunity to respond or to access support before decisions with lifelong consequences are made.

For now, the figures suggest that the debate over how England treats its youngest children in care is far from settled. With the number of infant care proceedings holding steady at a high level, and with the vast majority of infant adoptions proceeding without parental consent, experts say the question of whether support could have kept more families together remains urgent and largely unanswered.