* About 20 per cent of children in local authority care - over 10,000 - are four years old or younger.
* Research suggests that 70 to 80 per cent need some form of mental health input.
* A staggering 70 per cent leave school without any qualifications.
* Children are, on average, looked after in temporary foster families for as long as 14 months before the search for a new adoptive family starts. Finding the right adoptive family takes on average another seven months.
* The older the child, the less chance of adoption.
* At December 2000, only 4.7 per cent of children in care were adopted.
* The Government is proposing a national target of 40 per cent adoption by 2004/5, an increase of more than 800 per cent. It also aims to provide children in care with better educational support and reduce the time of court proceedings and adoption.
