The most significant cause of delay for children needing adoption is the length of time taken to complete court proceedings, the education inspectorate Ofsted said this week.

The Right on Time report found care proceedings took an average of 14 months to complete. It was based on a survey of nine local authorities, 53 adoption cases and interviews with 23 approved adopters.

While the report identified delays caused by issues such as a lack of suitable adopters or weak planning, it concluded that these were not as significant as those caused earlier by delays in initiating and concluding care proceedings.

Once the adoption process began, Ofsted said matching processes were ‘generally robust’ and there was little evidence of delay caused by an ‘unrealistic search for a perfect ethnic match’.

Family law experts welcomed the findings.

Naomi Angell, co-chair of the Law Society’s family law committee, said she was pleased that the report highlighted pre-proceedings delays, but said she was surprised it did not flag up difficulties in the adoption process that the government is currently seeking to resolve.

She said: ‘In some respects this is the local authority’s perspective and they see the court process as the problem. While court procedures undoubtedly need to be speeded up, the family justice review is addressing that.’

Jeanne Kaniuk, head of adoption at charity Coram Adoption, welcomed the report for changing the focus from the adoption process to the ‘enormous difficulties’ of the court process and the ‘prolonged delays’ before children come into care.