BRADFORD and other councils across Yorkshire are set to pool resources in a major shake-up of adoption services.

The scheme would see the creation of a new Yorkshire and Humber adoption hub overseeing three new adoption agencies, one for West Yorkshire, one for South Yorkshire and one for North and East Yorkshire.

The plan is designed to improve the service given to children and adoptive families, while also saving council costs.

Councillor Val Slater, the member of the council’s executive who oversees its adoption service, said Bradford Council was increasingly having to place children with adoptive parents from outside the district.

She said other local authorities charged Bradford around £27,000 per child each time this happened, to pay for the necessary checks on adopters.

Cllr Slater said while the Government currently reimburses Bradford for this cost, it was planning to stop doing so.

She said: “So for me, one of the advantages of putting this hub together is we are going to have a wider pool of adopters to pull from.”

Cllr Slater said the full details hadn’t yet been worked out, including whether this pool would cover West Yorkshire or the whole of Yorkshire.

She said they were also expecting further cost-savings from working together with other councils - something all local authorities were having to do more of as budgets shrank.

But Cllr Slater said the main aim was to improve the service for families and place children more quickly.

She said: “It shouldn’t just be about saving money for local authorities. It should be about improving the service, particularly for children.”

In June last year, the Government revealed its new vision for regional adoption agencies. In October, it announced that Yorkshire and the Humber would be among the regions pioneering the idea.

At the time, a Government spokesman said: “At the moment, adoption is happening at too small and localised a scale.

“One study showed that in around one in three cases, children were left waiting longer than necessary due to councils’ reluctance to look outside their immediate area for the right family - a further delay to a life full of love and stability.”

A report on the changes is going to be discussed by the council’s corporate parenting panel on Wednesday, before going before the Executive on July 19.

If all councils agree to the scheme, the new regional adoption agency could be created by April 2017.