So far as I can make comparisons, both anecdotal and statistical, the evidence suggests that the social workers employed by my council are more practical and less ideological than most. We have succeeded in reducing the number of "looked-after children" from 390 in 2006 to fewer than 300 and falling. The government has commended us for producing the best results in Britain in placing more children for adoption. But while offering encouragement to reach targets, the government simultaneously upholds the ideological barriers that thwart progress in meeting them. The government is dragging us in two opposite directions - urging us to place more children for adoption but retaining barriers of bureaucratic delay and political correctness that scupper progress.

For the children and couples to make it to the panel on which I sit means they are the lucky ones. They have succeeded. They come before us with the endorsement of the social workers - although ratification by the courts is still to come. We must approve a child as suitable for adoption, a couple as suitable to adopt and a match between the two.

In theory, we can also provide an appeal system for those turned down for adoption but this scarcely ever happens. Few couples who have been turned down have the emotional energy for yet further ritual humiliation and soul-baring - and who can blame them? Those attending panel meetings are invariably asked, as a sort of ice-breaker, how they have found the assessment process. "Um, well it's been very thorough," they might say, while their eyes say: "We've been to Hell and back." The high turnover of social workers doesn't help. Halfway through the process, couples find they are being assessed by a new social worker and have to start again.