The Government’s focus on driving up the number of adoptions should not be delivered at the expense of other routes to permanence, such as special guardianship or kinship care, for children for whom adoption may not be suitable. The Committee is also concerned that there is a significant lack of information about rates of adoption breakdown. The most pressing issue is that of post-adoption support. Children adopted from care have a range of needs due to their early life experiences, often of abuse or neglect, which are not resolved simply by being adopted. There should be a statutory duty on local authorities and other service commissioning bodies to ensure the provision of post-adoption support. Cost concerns need to take into account the significant amount of money which local authorities save when a child is adopted from care. The drive to increase adoptions must also not undermine preventative programmes and efforts to keep birth families together. The Committee also recommends a pilot scheme offering support to families who have had children removed from their care. Other recommendations from the Committee include: encouraging more local authorities to move towards joint adoption services with neighbouring authorities and adoption agencies; ending the current practice of employing Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) within local authorities and, instead, employing them externally, giving them the independence needed to promote the best interests of children; providing a designated teacher with responsibility for the wellbeing for adopted children within every school; and improving the training and supervision of social workers