Adoption applicants never seem to be thanked. The whole rigmarole has the added stress that the state appears to think it is doing the couple a huge favour by giving them a child. There is little or no gratitude shown towards people contemplating taking on such a responsibility, with the almost incalculable benefit it could bring to the child in question, not to mention society as a whole.

Outsiders might often blame the social workers, but while there are bad social workers and good ones, I blame the system. The social workers have to accept the parameters within which they operate. When it comes to all the form-filling they are the greatest victims. I have seen social workers in tears over having to tell a couple they face an unexpected further delay because of some administrative technicality. So much of the pressure on them comes in the wrong direction-to make adopting harder rather than easier.

For example, the only real power an adoption panel has is to throw a spanner in the works. Generally, this is the last thing they should want to do. A more useful role for such a panel would be to look at all the children who aren't being recommended for placement and all the couples who have been turned down.

Best known are the constraints on would-be adopters on the basis of who they are - for instance, they might be white. A particularly perverse result is that it is often black children who are denied loving homes in the name of political correctness. Often the delay means they will never be adopted even when this is the plan, but leave the care system aged 18 never having had a family they can call their own. This is because the social workers have delayed placing a child for years in pursuit of the right ethnic match. They eventually decide the child is "too old" to adopt - perhaps at the age of eight. After a traumatic start in life from their birth parents (for example, a heroin addict birth mother, the birth father having long scarpered), their troubles are compounded by being shunted around foster placements and children's homes. Often by this point their behaviour would be "challenging" for prospective adopters. So we have a grotesque self-fulfilling prophesy. The child can't be placed for adoption for years on end until all the boxes can be ticked for the prospective adopter. By the time such a figure emerges, the child is deemed too far gone.