Introduction
The Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 (the 2007 Act) received Royal Assent on 15 January 2007. The 2007 Act introduced a range of reforms into the law relating to adoption of, and permanent care for, children who cannot remain with their birth families. Once the new legislation is commenced, the existing legislation - the Adoption (Scotland) Act 1978 (the 1978 Act) - will be repealed, except to the extent necessary to maintain the legality of those adoptions that have already been made under it. One consequence of this is that existing Regulations made under the 1978 Act will no longer be valid. For that reason new Regulations require to be put in place to restate, and amend, extend and improve, existing Regulations. In doing this account will be taken of the report from the Adoption Policy Review Group ( APRG) Adoption: Better Choices for Our Children, which has already shaped the 2007 Act itself.
This consultation dealt with the draft Adoption (Disclosure of Medical Information about Natural parents) (Scotland) Regulations. As these regulations are subject to affirmative Parliamentary procedures they will now be included in a single set of regulations with the Adoption (Disclosure of Information) (Scotland) Regulations. These regulations are designed to make provision for access for adoption agencies to specified medical information where this might not have been forthcoming during the normal procedure for collecting such information.
The written consultation ran from 19 November 2008 until 28 January 2009. We received thirteen responses to the consultation, five from Local Authorities, five from organisations in the sector and beyond and three from individuals.