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The belief that private companies dominate independent fostering is challenged by a new report, which reveals that only 20 per cent of independent agencies are for profit, writes Terry Philpot.

Results of a study by the University of East Anglia, announced at the National Foster Care Association annual conference, revealed that 60 per cent of organisations are not for profit and a further 20 per cent are religious based or off-shoots of long-established voluntary groups.

The National Survey of Independent Fostering Agencies also questions the view that the independent sector creams off local authority foster carers. It found that while a third of the 1,963 foster carers employed by the 55 agencies surveyed had worked in the statutory sector, 46 per cent had no previous experience of fostering. Many had given up jobs as teachers, nurses and social workers.

Clive Sellick, senior lecturer in social work at UEA and joint author of the report, told the conference that "independent fostering agencies are fishing in a different pool".

However, independent agencies were more likely to attract social workers from social services departments. Of 293 employees, 181 had come from local authority area teams. In all more than 600 had joined the independent foster care sector, attracted by flexible and varied working arrangements.

Eleven per cent of fostered children are cared for by the independent sector, and 75 per cent of them are white. Twenty eight per cent of children were placed after a local authority placement broke down.

The report’s authors estimate there are about 4,000 independent foster carers in mainland UK. Five times as many joined the sector as left it. Eighty nine per cent were married couples and 82 per cent were white, but in many couples, the husband was the foster carer.

Sellick and Connolly found that the mean charge by agencies to local authorities was £683 per child per week, and foster carers got between £206 to £418 a week.