Today, Home for Good is publishing a new report entitled, Adoption pay: Levelling up for the self-employed. Written in May 2022, the report calls for equal access to adoption pay for those who are self-employed. Currently, self-employed prospective adopters are not eligible for adoption pay, which is available to those who are employed. The report makes a compelling case as to why this legislative loophole is discriminatory and why it needs to be addressed urgently.

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There are currently 1,890 children waiting for adoption in England; over 50% of these children have been waiting for 18 months or longer. Thus, there is an urgent need to recruit more adopters with the right skills to meet the needs of the children who are waiting. Home for Good is committed to tackling any barriers that prevent prospective adopters from stepping forward. The lack of statutory adoption pay for those who are self-employed is one such barrier.

Tania Bright, CEO of Home for Good said:

“As a charity, we regularly hear from self-employed individuals who want to pursue adoption and have room in their homes and hearts to welcome in a child who is waiting, but who feel that the lack of access to adoption pay makes adoption financially unviable. This is particularly lamentable in cases where someone’s background and skills would enable them to consider adopting children who wait the longest, such as a sibling group or a child with additional needs. Thus, in our new report, we urge the Government to act now and address this unnecessary discrepancy.”

The report recommends that Government should enable parity of access to adoption leave and pay by providing an Adoption Allowance to self-employed individuals. Government should also extend shared parental leave to couples where at least one individual is self-employed.

Since Autumn 2019, Home for Good has been working to both raise awareness of the discrimination faced by self-employed prospective adopters and to achieve systemic change on the issue. We’ve gathered evidence and case studies, met with Parliamentarians to brief them and written to Government ministers. Over the past few months, we have been supporting Notafictionalmum’s campaign to make self-employed people eligible for statutory adoption pay. Her petition was signed by nearly 17,000 individuals and was debated in Parliament on 21 March 2022. On 25 May 2022, we hosted a drop-in session in Parliament alongside Notafictionalmum and other organisations such as Adoption UK, Barnardo’s and Coram, which was attended by 12 MPs and Peers, including the Minister for Small Business, Consumers and Labour Markets who holds responsibility for this policy area. As part of our continued parliamentary engagement on the issue, Home for Good have submitted this report to the House of Lords Select Committee’s current inquiry on the Children and Families Act 2014, as they consider whether current legislation is still fit for purpose.

Momentum is building and many parliamentarians have voiced their support for legislative change to enable self-employed adopters to access statutory adoption pay. We believe that this crucial change will be a significant step forward in finding a home for every child who needs one.

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For further information, please contact our Advocacy team by emailing [email protected].