News

By Maria Ahmed and Gordon Carson

This week’s report on the cost of foster care from Baaf Adoption and Fostering and the Fostering Network is a comprehensive analysis of the investment required to bring about improvements in fostering services in the UK.

The current expenditure of £932m by the governments of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is nowhere near enough, it says and calls for another £750m a year to be made available as soon as possible.

Money is a major factor in the problems experienced in fostering. The shortage of 10,000 carers has been blamed on the fact that many existing foster families don’t receive a satisfactory allowance from local authorities to support children in their care, while fewer than half receive an extra fee or income on top of that allowance.

The report, The Cost of Foster Care, finds that the lives of looked-after children are determined by “short-term, cash-strapped” local authority budgets.

It says funding should be seen as “an investment in a group of children and young people who, as adults, are over-represented in prisons, the homeless and as users of mental health services”.

And the importance of more investment in fostering is highlighted by the fact that nearly three-quarters of the 75,000 children in care living away from home are placed with foster carers. The number of children in foster care is also rising by the year.

The report’s main concerns include:

• A significant proportion of local authorities/health boards still pay their foster carers an allowance that is lower than the Fostering Network’s recommended rate 
  
• Many foster carers lack the training and support to address the complex needs of children in their care

To improve this situation, the Fostering Network and Baaf make a series of recommendations, including:

• 85 per cent of foster carers should receive a fee on top of their allowance
  
• post-approval training should be an essential part of an effective foster care service, and in the future at least 50 per cent of foster carers should be trained to S/NVQ Level 3 or an equivalent level of qualification
  
• and significant investment is needed to improve recruitment and find foster carers who can meet the needs of children from diverse background

Workforce

The report also recognises that foster carers are “increasingly seen as key members of the professional team that is responsible for securing improved outcomes for children in foster care”. With this, however, come “increasing demands and expectations” and the need for more training.

A spokeswoman from the Local Government Association’s children and families policy team says: “Traditionally foster carers had a voluntary role with very little recognition, but now for many it is a source of income and career, and they should get proper workforce recognition”.

However, John Coughlan, chair of the Association of Directors of Social Services’ children and families committee, says the “traditional volunteer element” of the foster care role is “still critical in ensuring quality foster care”.

Problems facing local authorities

He says the recruitment and retention of foster carers are key issues facing local authorities. While he believes councils should retain their independence to make decisions about how to run their foster services, he recognises that the report and the DfES are trying to put more consistency into the system.

A national minimum allowance for foster carers would be one way of tackling huge variations across local authorities (a Fostering Network survey last year found that only 30 per cent of foster carers receive more than £100 a week, a figure that’s still less than the Fostering Network’s recommended minimum). The LGA spokeswoman says that if there were to be a statutory minimum allowance the LGA would help to ensure that local authorities would meet it.

The Children Act 2004 gives the governments of England and Wales the power to set national minimum allowances. However, the government does not intend to use any powers to invoke a minimum rate until 2007 at the earliest. Instead it would like councils to voluntarily pay a national minimum, the level of which is currently being worked out by the DfES and stakeholder groups including Baaf and the ADSS.

Campaigners are hopeful, though, that the government will come up with more money. At the start of this year, then children’s minister Margaret Hodge made a commitment, in a letter to Baaf, that the government would make available extra funding to support the introduction of a national minimum allowance in England.

The government has already announced that total funding for children’s social services is to rise by £500m from 2005-6 to 2007-8. But this money is not ring-fenced, meaning councils will be able to determine their own priorities.

This week the organisations behind the report met the junior children’s minister, Maria Eagle, to specifically make the case for more investment in foster care. However, the LGA spokeswoman warns that the government will need “persuasive evidence from a number of sources” before it meets the funding requirements set out in the report.

The Cost of Foster Care from www.thefostering.net/campaigns/cost_of_foster_care/CFC_report.pdf