How risk averse are the applicants when it comes to health and safety issues? How does the home shape up under a risk assessment? What if the prospective father says he won't share in nappy changing as he is rather traditional and will concentrate on being the breadwinner? He had better remain reticent about such a view even if his wife agrees with him. Applicants are quizzed on what "role models" would be available to the adoptive child and what sort of people are in the "support network". Your families and friends should be well versed in political correctness as they may be quizzed. There can be second chances for those producing ideologically deviant answers but only if you are prepared to undertake training courses to be re-educated to a more enlightened viewpoint.

There are issues that are "not allowed" to be considered. For instance, common sense might indicate that a married couple, having demonstrated a commitment to each other, would offer a better prospect for a permanent loving home than a couple who are merely cohabiting - but questions on marital status are deemed inappropriate.

Current social work ideology is to keep children with birth parents at all costs because that represents an "ethnic match". Social workers dislike the "social engineering" aspect of children from poor backgrounds being placed with affluent couples wishing to adopt. The greatest crime - confusing, given that it is professional graduates sitting in judgment - is to be middle class. The social work mission is broadly to replicate the type of upbringing children would have had if they had been left in the mess into which they were born. With this mentality, potential advantages become disadvantages - too big a garden, too many books.