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Intermediary Services for Persons Adopted before 30 December 2005

Document Cited authorities 4 Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorNasreen Pearce/Richard Budworth
Pages207-214

Chapter 17


Intermediary Services for Persons Adopted before
30 December 2005

INTRODUCTION

17.1 ACA 2002, s 98 provides for regulations to be made to assist persons adopted before 30 December 2005, who have attained the age of 18 years, to obtain information about their adoption, and to facilitate contact between them and their relatives. For these purposes, ‘relative’ means any person who (but for his adoption) would have been related to the adopted person by blood (including half-blood), marriage or civil partnership (ACA 2002, s 98(7)). It also makes provision for regulations to require registered adoption support agencies, the Registrar General and adoption agencies to disclose information or restrict the disclosure of information. The section thus provides the framework for a very specific service to be provided to persons who were adopted before 30 December 2005, and the birth families of such persons, to obtain information about each other and to facilitate contact between them. The aim is to address the difficulties faced by this class of adopted persons who, but for these provisions, would have had little or no information enabling them to trace persons from whom they have been separated by adoption.

17.2 Pursuant to ACA 2002, s 98, the Adoption Information and Intermediary Services (Pre-Commencement Adoptions) Regulations 2005 (SI 2005/890), as amended by SI 2015/1685 (AIIS(PCA)R 2005), and the corresponding Welsh regulations, identify the agencies which are to provide the services – known as ‘intermediary services’, and to whom such services may be provided. It sets out the procedure to be adopted by both the applicant who seeks such services and the agency which provides them. This regulatory structure enables an intermediary agency to seek information to assist an adopted adult person and his adult birth relatives to obtain information about each other, subject to obtaining the necessary consents; to facilitate contact and to offer support and advice to the persons concerned. The right to request this service is additional to the right which the adopted person has, on reaching 18, to apply to the Registrar

208 Adoption Law: A Practical Guide

General for the information needed to obtain a certified copy of his birth record. It is also additional to the adopted person’s right to apply to the appropriate adoption agency for access to his adoption records (see Chapters 19 and 20).

WHO CAN PROVIDE INTERMEDIARY SERVICES?

17.3 Only a registered adoption support agency or an adoption agency is authorised to provide intermediary services. The adoption support agency must be registered under Care Standards Act 2000, Pt 2 to provide intermediary services. These services are available only to adopted persons who have attained the age of 18, and must be provided in accordance with the requirements set out in the regulations. An adoption agency which is the appropriate agency in relation to an adopted person, which provides information solely about that person’s adoption, does not provide an intermediary service. If these conditions are met, the agency constitutes an adoption support service for the purposes of ACA 2002, s 2(1) (see AIIS(PCA)R 2005, regs 3 and 5(3)).

SERVICES TO BE PROVIDED

17.4 The intermediary agency is required to provide services to assist a person adopted before 30 December 2005 who has attained the age of 18 to obtain information in relation to his adoption and to facilitate contact between that person and his relatives (AIIS(PCA)R 2005, reg 4). The services also include securing counselling, advice and other information to such persons and to assist a relative of the adopted person to contact an adopted person (AIIS(PCA)R 2005, reg 5). Where the intermediary agency has limited...

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