Agenda item

To provide information to the Corporate Parenting Committee about the general management of the in-house fostering service and how it is achieving good outcomes for children, in accordance with standard 25.7 of the Fostering National Minimum Standards (2011).

Onder Beter (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) introduced the report, which was a regular quarterly update on the fostering service. He highlighted that there was a challenge in recruiting foster carers in London and nationally, which had been featured in the recent independent review of children’s social care. In response Brent was focusing on recruitment, attempting to restructure the service to improve innovation and have more financial investment in marketing and recruitment of foster carers. The Council was in a partnership arrangement with 2 other local authorities to work on recruitment of foster carers, which was due to pick up pace in September 2022.

The Committee noted that the number of looked after children (LAC) placed with independent fostering agencies (IFAs) was above target, and asked for an explanation of the difference between the use of independent fostering agencies compared to in-house carers, in terms of a child’s experience and the cost implications associated with that. The Committee were advised that the cost implications were significant, as the local authority paid at least double to IFAs compared to what they paid for in-house foster carers as there was the agency fee also. Most councils were not able to compete with IFAs in relation to the allowance paid to carers, with IFAs able to pay more to carers, but Brent tried to supplement that with an excellent support package to carers, recognising that a carers’ motivation may not be money but serving the community. This year, Brent is increasing the support function and trying to bring in a therapeutic element to the support offered to foster carers, although this came with cost implications as there was no budget for this additional support meaning funding would need to be sought. Alongside this, officers were lobbying to level up in-house carer allowances to at least the London average. Onder Beter highlighted that, nationally, the sector was depending on IFAs as no council was able to absorb the number of children coming into care and needing to be placed.

In response to whether the use of IFAs made it more likely a child would be moved out of borough, Nigel Chapman advised this was not necessarily the case as there were a lot of IFA foster carers within Brent and IFAs gave the local authority a greater choice on where a child could be placed. Some children were placed away from the Borough in their own interest, such as risk factors relating to gangs. The local authority always looked to place a child with a Brent foster carer first, but sometimes further outside of the borough meant more housing space and the ability to keep siblings together.

In relation to recruitment methods, Onder Beter advised that during the pandemic most recruitment activity moved online through local adverts and online recruitment techniques, which research suggested was most effective. The Council were now starting face to face recruitment events in combination with other marketing, such as through the Brent magazine, local radio station, and recruitment agencies. A Marketing and Recruitment Officer was now in post specialising in this area and Brent had begun to see more foster carers being approved. The Committee were asked to support the online activity whenever they saw it and talk about fostering in their surgeries. The Brent Fostering Twitter page was ‘@BrentFostering’.

i)              To note the report.