Adoption

The Court of Appeal, in allowing the appeals of both the father and the local authority, held, among other things, that the prospective adopters ought not to have been joined as parties to the care proceedings. The care judge was concerned at most with consideration of adoption in principle, not with evaluating the merits of particular proposed adopters. There was no need for the prospective adopters to be joined and there was nothing in the status or function of an early permanence placement foster carer which either justified or required any change in the conventional and long-established approach.