t the minimum facilities that must be made available in the provision of the service. The local authority is not obliged to provide all the facilities itself but may make use of services provided by voluntary adoption agencies and adoption support agencies, or other suitable service providers who are permitted to provide the service in question. This guidance, particularly in chapters 1 and 9, sets out some of the matters that a local authority will need to consider in planning its strategy for delivering an adoption service. The local authority’s staffing and budgetary plans will need to take account of the duties 10 imposed on it by the legislation, regulations, statutory guidance and the National Minimum Standards for Adoption. Offences As part of the framework for safeguarding children in the context of adoption, the Act restricts who can lawfully arrange adoptions, and advertise about adoption. It also imposes restrictions on the preparation of adoption reports, provides safeguards to the confidentiality of adoption records, prohibits certain payments or rewards in connection with adoption, and restricts the bringing of children into the UK and taking of children out of the UK for adoption. It makes provision for the protection of adoptive placements from interruption and the recovery of children unlawfully removed from placement. The Act creates a number of offences in connection with this framework, particulars of which are set out in Annex A. It is important that staff working in adoption agencies, adoption support agencies and children’s services departments are aware of the procedures to be followed if they become aware that an offence may have been committed or is likely to be committed. Coverage of the statutory guidance Chapter 1 describes the structures ne