I think his main concern is that though in theory social services put the child's needs first, in practice they 'balance' that (over-balance it, in his view) with a commitment to keeping families together when possible. He feels that social workers should be sharper, quicker, cleaner at identifying those families who with help can sort themselves out, and those who really can't and the children should be adopted as soon as possible. I think he's right but I would have liked to see more analysis of the causes of this (not just 'these social workers and their silly ideas') and solutions that go beyond telling social workers not to be silly. (To be fair this was written up in a newspaper; there may be much better analysis behind the scenes).
2 is ridiculous and made me doubt the rigour of his analysis throughout. There is of course an ethical imperative to support women in exploring all the possible options with unwanted pregnancy, and adoption is a valid and often valuable solution. But if the goal is to reduce the number of children taken into care, then this is a complete non-starter. Giving your child up for adoption is a far harder and more emotionally damaging experience than having an abortion - it takes self-knowledge, forward thinking, self-control, understanding of the long-term implications etc, just the qualities most likely to be absent in a woman who can't cope with parenting. Young girls who opt for having their child adopted (often fuelled by sentimental fantasies and peers who are hostile to abortion) are highly likely to decide to keep the baby, and then not be able to cope. In other words, promoting this option is likely to lead to more children taken into care, not fewer.
I agree that children should be kept within the family where possible - I think Narey is arguing that there needs a sense of proportion and of urgency, so social workers shouldn't spend several months exhaustively interviewing several relatives where there is no real prospect of them being suitable (he cites the assessment of someone who is homeless, for example). Again, hard to know how much of an issue this is with the lack of cited evidence.
I don't really know much about social impact bonds - I think it's an exercise in routinely identifying costs and benefits of different support package options - the idea being to make explicit the value of continuing support for troubled children.
Lilka, I think Narey's point is that he thinks 'the whole goal of care is to get the child home' is wrong. He thinks the care system and adoption as an option are viewed negatively and that this results in children living in limbo, in very unsatisfactory circumstances, for months and years until adoption is no longer an option.
NN, I agree completely with you on the NSPCC. I'm sure they do some good work, but I think the results they achieve, given the resources they have, is overall less than impressive. They gain from the common assumption that they are some kind of emergency service, a compassionate objective alternative to social services. Many people in the voluntary sector are agog at how they've managed to keep this gig going for so long. I don't actively wish them ill, of course not, but I certainly don't give them money either.