The government has unveiled a white paper, "Adoption: a new approach", to make the process of adoption simpler, quicker and less "politically correct".

Speaking in the Commons yesterday, health secretary, Alan Milburn, branded the current system as "slow, cumbersome and unfair".

Milburn told MPs that there was a failure in the system of care, with seven in 10 children in council care leaving without any qualifications and children waiting up to a year-and-a-half before they were given an adoption decision. The average time for adoption is three years which, he said, was "an eternity in a child's eyes".

The government has set a target of a 40 per cent increase in the number of children adopted each year by 2005.

Local authorities - to be given an extra £66 million over three years - which fail to meet the new target will be stripped of their powers to organise adoptions.

Black children will be able to be adopted by mixed race families and an adoption register for England and Wales will be established. A new legal option of "special guardianship" is to be introduced for children unable to live with their parents but wishing to maintain ties with them.