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Interagency fee

The interagency fee is a charge that is paid when a local authority places a child with an adopter approved by another adoption agency (this could be another local authority, a regional adoption agency, or a voluntary adoption agency).

Background

The purpose of the interagency fee is to ensure that agencies receive adequate payment for the work involved in recruiting, assessing, preparing, approving and matching their adopters, and in supporting a child’s start in their adoptive family’s home. It is also intended to encourage the matching of children and adopters across agency boundaries, which is crucial for avoiding delay and ensuring the best possible matches for children.

Please note that the interagency fee is paid by adoption agencies – it is not charged to adopters.

Since 1992, CVAA has set the interagency fee for placement with a VAA, and reviewed and uplifted it when necessary to keep pace with rising costs.

In 2009, seminal research by Julie Selwyn, Joe Sempik, Peter Thurston and Dinithi Wijedasa (from the Hadley Centre for Adoption and Foster Care Studies, School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol and the Centre for Child and Family Research, Loughborough University) found that the costs of placing a child with an adoptive family were around £35-37,000. At the time, VAAs were charging around £23,000 for a placement.

In the 15 years since the study, the interagency fee currently being charged is just over £37,000. This is significantly less than the estimate provided by Selwyn et al. taking into consideration inflationary increases in the past 15 years.

Inflationary increases – timeline

The fee to place with any agency (voluntary or statutory) was £27,000 from 2011 to 2018. This ‘level playing field’ was agreed by ADCS, LGA and CVAA and supported the placement of thousands of children with adopters across the UK.

In June 2018, after consultation with our members, CVAA raised the fee for the first time in 7 years. ADCS and LGA did not feel able to agree to this increase; consequently there has not been a ‘level playing field’ since June 2018, and data shows that children are now waiting longer for a placement.

CVAA raised the fee with the support of the VAAs because the value of the fee had been significantly eroded by inflation and was well below the cost of providing a placement. This was unsustainable for both the VAA sector and the wider adoption system.

Interagency fee for 2024-25

The interagency fee increases every year on 1 April in line with Consumer Price Inflation including Owner Occupiers’ Housing Costs (CPIH) for the previous calendar year, as published by the Office for National Statistics.

The fee information for 2024/25 is as follows:

Interagency fee rates and terms 2024 to 2025 – England and Wales

Interagency Fee rates & terms 2024 to 2025 – Scotland

(Note: the above letter was updated with the correct fees on 15/11/24)

Interagency Fee rates & terms 2024 to 2025 – Northern Ireland

Interagency Fee rates & terms 2024 to 2025 – Wales

Interagency fee guidance and additional information

Interagency fee: An Operational Guide with Appendices for England, Wales and Northern Ireland Incorporating revisions agreed in 2020: Updated February 2024

The CoramBAAF Form IA 2021 (UK-wide) can be downloaded here.

CVAA produced a briefing in 2022 about the interagency fee in cases where children have been placed with families for over 12 months without an Adoption Order being made. The briefing summarises a survey of our members and explains how the fee is used by VAAs and why it is important.