FOS0076

Written evidence submitted by the National Fostering Agency

NFA Group (NFA)

• Largest independent fostering agency in the UK, established in 1995.

• The overall Group currently maintains circa 3,900 foster carer households looking after circa 4,450 children and young people with a wide range of needs and challenges

• The Group, through its ownership of Acorn Care & Education also operates:

• 17 residential and day schools providing services broadly into two categories; those that care for children who experience social, emotional and mental health issues, and those offering specialist care and education for children on the autistic spectrum, usually with other learning difficulties

• 19 residential homes created to deliver high quality, child-focused residential care placements for young people from the age of eight upwards offering residential care, shared care and after care support

• In England, NFA provides fostering services to Local Authorities (LA) via a range of strictly governed and controls framework and supply contracts that are fully procured by the Las under complex and robust EU procurement rules.   In a number of parts of England Local Authorities will join together to jointly procure.

Recruitment and Retention of Foster Carers

1. Since 2009[1], the number of children in foster homes provided by English Local Authorities and the Independent Sector (IFAs) has increased by 22.2%.  During the same period those placements provided by the LA services grew by 4.3% and those provided by the Independent Sector by 83.3%.

2. Recruitment of foster carers is undertaken in line with the Fostering Regulations and associated formal guidance. The process is rigorous and typically takes six to eight months end-to-end, including reference checks and training. The assessment process is based around a formal “Form F” which records in detail the assessment process, guidance, counselling and outcomes of all checks and references.  Both Las and IFAs are required to follow the same process.  A foster carer may only be registered with one organisation, but are free to transfer between organisations (public and independent) as they wish.

3. The aim behind the carer recruitment process is to recruit suitably skilled and located foster carers to improve the chance of there being a “best possible” foster carer available for a given child.  The Independent Sector works very hard locally to provide capacity in order the Local Authorities with whom they work can meet the sufficiency capacity they are obliged to provide under their ‘sufficiency obligations’.

4. In recent years, LAs have adopted a strategy of ‘recruit and transfer’ in as many carers as possible quite often with the promise the opportunity of fostering younger children or providing additional children to help with this. This can be attractive to foster carers who are looking for additional placement or wish to foster younger children. However, LAs are typically unprepared and under-resourced to best utilise and manage an increase in their carer household.

5. Contrary to current media activity, specifically from two sources (ADCS + TACT), ‘golden hello’ and other inducement activity is actively used by Local Authorities. In addition to cash offers LA’s offer a ‘no council tax’ incentive and promise of additional placements.

6. The Independent Sector has been more successful in attracting carers through its skills in recruitment, together with:

• Extensive and accessible training and personal development
• Out of hours 24/7 professional support 
• Family activities and support networks
• Generally lower social worker caseloads

7. Retention of carers is fundamental and investment in training and ongoing support essential to ensure carers not only have the competence, but the confidence to deal with some of England’s most challenging and vulnerable children.

The Stability of placements and the staying put initiative

8. Since its introduction in May 2014 the ‘Staying Put’ initiative was implemented with £40m to support its implementation.  Allocated to local authorities over three years, there is a consensus in the sector the money cannot cover the cost of providing a ‘Staying Put’ arrangement for every young person who is entitled to one. The outcome of this puts further pressure on local authorities to fund this out their budgets and add further pressure to scarce resources.

9. A report[2] issued by the Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP) noted the lack of central government funding in supporting this initiative has created problems in respect of how the independent sector can assist. Staying Put is not funded at fostering rates and it is not funded at supported lodgings rates. This lack of financial support leads to local authorities looking for high value-low cost arrangements and fostering providers seeking to protect their costs and the incomes of their carers.

10. Foster carer households participating in ‘Staying Put’ typically have a loss of income, despite the additional support they need to give the young person who is transiting to independence.  This frequently creates an emotional conundrum for carers, particularly where there has been longevity in the placement.   This creates further difficulties where young people go off for further education and need a life anchor point for weekends and holidays.   

11. In terms of carer capacity, the ‘Staying Put’ scheme also poses difficulties in reducing the availability of experienced carer households, or additional matching requirements where the carer is approved for more than one placement.

12. Central Government should reconsider how funding regime of those young people in foster care is managed post 18.  Current arrangements move the funding responsibility from children’s services to a range of other, uncoordinated, agencies and benefit providers.  It would make perfect sense for the children’s services team to retain access to these post eighteen funds, where appropriate, in order the individual needs of that young person can be managed.  In many instances of long-term fostering enabling fostering fees to be maintained for the carer will ensure that young people have continuing and loving support during the transition years where a sense of belonging is essential.

13. Placement stability is essential for each and every child and the arbitrary movement of placements by a local authority to an ‘in house’ carer on the basis of cost is not acceptable

The Role of the Independent Sector

14. The legislation and regulations governing fostering should ensure the interests of the child or young person are paramount in the matching of the child’s care plan and needs to the correct foster household, however, price-led commissioning is a growing trend for LAs. New procurement exercises clearly place the emphasis on price over quality or outcomes. This can lead to the independent sector unable or unwilling to offer solutions for individual referrals as they would be unable to provide the requisite level of support needed to maintain those placements safely and deliver positive outcomes. This approach is likely to be detrimental in driving standards down.

15. The Independent sector currently provides over 40% of fostering placements in England

16. Ensuring the sector has choice is essential not only in terms of any LA demonstrating their sufficiency for their local needs, but credibly aiming to ensure each child or young person has the opportunity to be placed with the right family that can meet, and hopefully, exceed the expectations set for any one child.

17. NFA as an organisation has full operational coverage throughout England and can work with its LA customers to provide professional solutions for those children that are placed ‘out of boundary’[3]

18. NFA, along with other IFA’s invest in resources to develop specific services that can provide value for money and effective solutions for specific types of placement.

• Parent and Child placements
• Step down from residential to a family environment leading to cost savings of £70k per year.

The foster care market, commissioning and financial incentives to recruit foster carers

19. According to Sir Martin Narey, improving local and regional commissioning skills must be a priority. In a recently published a report published by Demos[4], entitled Commissioning in Children’s Services - What Works? there is a call for the Commissioning Support Programme to be reinstated.  The programme gave commissioners the support they needed to learn from the latest developments in commissioning, continually refresh their skills and gain from other’s insights and advice.

20. In terms of procurement Commissioners operate within the current legislative procurement regulations, however, the process is very lengthy and complex and requires expert skills to ensure full compliance.  The processes are expensive to administer for both the local authorities and the independent sector requiring a significant level of resource. The focus in most instances is on price and not necessarily on the delivery of outcomes for the child or young person.  It is not uncommon for the price weighting in some contracts to be 100%.

21. There is also a misconception in the public sector that the independent sector is more expensive than ‘in house’ provision and unsubstantiated. Often a local authority will compare against their allowance to the carer which is only one element of the total cost to the local authority. An IFA fee is a fully all-inclusive cost including return on investment, risk, carer and staff recruitment and training costs.  In addition, IFA’s participating in the framework tenders and contracts are required to provide monitoring and Quality Assurance information to LAs at a level and regularity that is rarely, if ever, also applied to any local authority ‘in-house’ services.

22. The complexity of each referral[5]  is dealt with on an individual basis to ensure the precise needs of the child or young person can be met as closely as possible. It is essential that the focus should return to the best match for the child and not a constant drive to assume ‘in house’ is the requirement as it is ‘cheaper’.

23. Potential Foster Carers undertake significant research prior to application to become a foster carer and are very informed before they make their decisions to approach the various organisations (public sector and independent sector) to consider their options.  As such there is full freedom of choice for foster carers to select the environment that is best for them and their families.

24. NFA Group carer research determines most are vocational driven in their desire to become carers.  That noted, carers will require sufficient allowance to ensure their normal living costs are covered and the environment they create for those they look after is appropriate. Many NFA carers households focus solely on fostering and regard this as their career.

25. Contrary to current media activity, specifically from two sources (ADCS + TACT), ‘golden hello’ and other inducement activity is actively used by Local Authorities. In addition to cash offers LA’s offer a ‘no council tax’ incentive and promise of additional placements.

26. There will always be a cohort of households who also consider foster care their main source of income and will be susceptible to financial incentives to move their registrations; these types of incentives do nothing to improve the overall capacity and volume of available foster carers.  NFA Group has a published statement that it will not provide ‘Golden Hellos’ and will not condone that type of activity by the public sector nor the independent sector.

The sufficiency of current recognition for foster carers

27. Unlike Teachers, Social Workers etc., the position of the foster carer is vulnerable on several fronts:

• They are closest to the placement, but can be excluded from the decision-making process.

• Delegated authority, whilst moving in the right direction, can still be an inhibitor in terms of the day to day life of the child.

• In the event of an allegation, the child will be removed causing stress and concern and loss of income for the foster carer.  In many circumstances allegations, can be rooted in manipulation and be considered unfounded.  It is fully understood that all allegations must be taken seriously, however, a formal review should be undertaken to put in place safeguards to consider the management of allegations to reduce the impact of the high level of false allegations.

28. It is NFA’s experience from its research that its cohort of carers are generally very satisfied with the financial allowance they receive.

Foster care for young people with challenging needs

29. In analysing the range of referrals it receives from local authorities, NFA Group has identified a trend for more complex or difficult to place young people to be referred to the independent sector:

• This supports the active role the independent sector plays in supporting the sufficiency of the local authorities

• Evidences the investment made by providers like NFA Group in recruiting, training and developing foster carers capable and competent to take care of this type of placement

• As a national provider, an environment of best practice and innovation helps create great solutions for complex cases.

30. There will always be a requirement for residential care for a range of specific needs, however, there will always be the opportunity to consider how each child or young person might fayre in a family environment as they progress.

Involvement of children in their foster care

31. The choice of a foster home for any child is critical to establishing a safe and nurturing environment for their development.  Time sensitivities permitting, any child will want a view on where they want to live and, once the best matches for them have been established.

32. The wishes of the child should always be paramount where moving the placement for no good reason emerges.  For example, the desire by the local authority to move the placement to an in-house carer.

33. A similar view should be given to those approaching 18 as to what they feel is best for them (see ‘Staying Put’ commentary)

34. Active and informed participation in all other elements of decision making is part of good parenting and should be encouraged by government.

What Government should consider in its fostering stock take

• Determining the real cost of ‘in house’ services to establish the true level playing field of cost and value for money and remove the perceived ‘barriers’ of using for profit providers.

• Remove the discrimination between voluntary/charitable providers and for profit providers to access how best to use the considerable professional expertise in the independent sector to help improve, manage and provide innovation to support children’s services and achieve better outcomes.

• Price led commissioning trend is not focused on the quality and care of young people’s outcomes

• The need for additional support for commissioners to inform decision-making, such as the Commissioner Support Programme.  Consider removing the commissioning function from the provider function to create and effective and well managed sector.

• Currently the independent sector is inspected under a different regime to the fostering services provided by local authorities….is this wise?

• Ensure ‘Golden Hellos’ is outlawed and cannot be used as an incentive by the either the public sector and the independent sector.

• Consider the status of foster carers and the value they bring as part of the professional team surrounding any child or young person in fostering.

November 2016