The underlying problem in terms of government policy is the failure to properly and scientifically approach the analysis of the policy. It is absolutely no good at all simply picking on a few examples where things have worked out well and using those as justification for the policy. What is needed is an analysis of the effects of each step in the decisionmaking process.
For example there is a step of a court order placing one or more children for adoption. What needs to be studied is what the consequences are of this. It is wrong to simply consider the children that do end up adopted, you also need to consider those that don't. The Education select committee (actually its predecessor) visited Denmark and considered their care system. Their system works with families and does not set out to split up families. However, there has been a failure to compare and contrast what we do in England to what they do there. Simply it was thought to be a good system.
Somehow we need to look critically at what we do and not simply accept the protestations of people that we have a gold plated system. We have a very expensive system, but that does not mean it is as good as it could be for the children.
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