Dramatic variation in adoption rates

The Family Courts can barely cope with the volume of new care cases - brought by local authorities seeking to take children away from their families. It's a crisis - say both incoming and outgoing Presidents of the Family Division. Yet there is dramatic variation between local authorities, as illustrated by research by Professor Andy Bilson, who tracked two cohorts of children, using FOI. He found that in Southampton, a child born in 2011-12 was twelve times more likely to be adopted by the age of 5, than a child born in Greenwich. Sanchia Berg reports .