Agenda item

To provide information to the Corporate Parenting Committee regarding the current position for placement stability. The report explains the reasons for the increase in multiple placement moves and articulates the work undertaken to minimise unplanned moves for Looked After Children.

Zafer Yilkan (Director for Integration and Improved Outcomes, Brent Council) introduced the report. He highlighted there had been a slight increase in placement moves since 2021, mostly due to covid-19 and the number of contacts coming through to children’s services. In terms of the placement pattern, there were a large number of over 16s coming into the system under emergency arrangements and a large number of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASCs). Linking those issues with the national shortage of placements meant that Brent had a challenge in terms of placing children and young people. There were a number of local authorities bidding for one placement every day, and the competition caused the cost of placement to rise. The department were implementing a number of strategies to ensure placements remained stable, including placement stability meetings, care packages and wraparound support. In addition, there were challenges with recruiting foster carers. In relation to care leavers, the percentage of staying put arrangements in Brent was relatively high, which meant those children were in stable, long-term placements with their foster carers past the age of 18, but the placement was then not available for other children to move in to.

The Chair thanked Zafer for his introduction and invited contributions from the Committee, with the following points raised:

The Committee noted that Brent’s fostering allowance was below the average compared to the rest of West London and asked if it could be changed. Anecdotal evidence suggested that other local authorities were paying around £100 more per week than Brent. Nigel Chapman (Corporate Director Children and Young People, Brent Council) advised that historically Brent had paid lower due to budget constraints. The allowance worked on a graded approach, aligned to the age of the child/ren being placed. He felt that the allowance was not the only reason people became foster carers, as the support available also attracted foster carers. Brent was looking at their arrangements currently, working with Ealing and Harrow around the possibility of combining services. If the department made the case to level up allowances to attract foster carers, this would have implications on the cost to the budget. It was highlighted that when people stopped foster caring their reasons for doing so were not usually related to allowances.

The Committee queried whether there was anything IFAs were doing better than Brent that the Council could learn from. Kelli Eboji (Head of LAC and Permanency, Brent Council) advised the Committee that IFA recruitment processes were not different from Brent’s processes. In terms of retention, the department were looking at how they could further support foster carers with a therapeutic offer, looking to see what additional benefits could be offered within the resources it had, because IFAs often had good out of hours support systems that could be accessed 24/7. Zafer Yilkan added that most local authorities were very clear about the fostering guidance and followed the same processes. Brent’s placement sufficiency for bed capacity was relatively good and the department maximised that capacity where it could. The service foster carers received from Brent was very similar to other local authorities and IFAs and there was well established support for clinical supervision from the Anna Freud Centre to help sustain placements.

The Committee highlighted that the report showed that the data relating to older children referred to an increase in UASCs, and queried whether there were any unique challenges for that group of children. Nigel Chapman advised that the previous year there had been the challenge of the use of hotels in the local area, where the Home Office had initially placed people as adults who were then presenting as children at the Civic Centre. The initial challenge of that had been conducting age assessments quickly and fairly, and for the child there was the stress and uncertainty of being believed and what would happen to them. There was a dedicated team doing that work as quickly as possible. UASCs also had potential trauma from what they had experienced in their own country and their journey to the UK, so there was dedicated therapeutic support for UASCs. The number of UASCs fluctuated and had recently increased again as the government now required local authorities to take 0.1% of asylum seekers, compared to 0.07% previously, and this added pressure to the local placement challenge.

RESOLVED:

i)              To note the report and activity undertaken to enhance placement stability for looked after children in Brent.