Fewer children were waiting to be adopted in Worcestershire last year, figures reveal.

But children’s charity Coram has warned the need to recruit new adoptive families is “urgent” as there are now more than twice as many children waiting for new adoptive families as there are approved adopters.

In December 2018, around 25 children in Worcestershire were waiting to be placed with an adoptive family, compared to 30 one year before, according to the Adoption and Special Guardianship Leadership Board.

The numbers are rounded to the nearest five in the data.

The figures show that 15 children had already received a placement order – a court order authorising the local authority to place a child for adoption – but had not yet been placed with a family by the end of the year.

A total of 15 children waiting to be placed with a family were aged under five and five were classed as ‘harder to place’ because they were either five-years-old or over, from black, Asian or minority ethnic backgrounds, disabled, or part of a siblings group.

On average, children in the area were still waiting 317 days to be placed with an adoptive family despite having a placement order. However, this was an improvement on one year previously, when the process was taking 395 days.

Across England, there were 4,120 children waiting for a placement order and 2,750 with a placement order but who had not yet found an adoptive family in December.

At the same time, only 1,700 families were approved to adopt by the end of the year.

Dr Carol Homden, chief executive of Coram, said: “There are thousands of children waiting today for new, loving families to come forward and give them a permanent home. The key message is that we need more adopters from every walk of life to commit to adoption."