§ Mr. Jim CunninghamTo ask the Secretary of State for Health (1) what plans he has to regulate the independent foster care home sector in respect of(a) quality of care provided and (b) charges to local authorities; [105911]
(2) what discussions he has had with the independent foster care home sector with regard to quality of care and cost to local authorities; [105912]
(3) what assessment he has made of the levels of charges made for the provision of foster care by (a) the independent foster care home sector and (b) local authorities; and if he will make a statement. [105910]
§ Mr. HuttonWe announced in the White Paper "Modernising Social Services" that independent fostering agencies will, in future, be regulated. The intention is that they will have to register with and be inspected by the new National Care Standards Commission. The changes are being introduced in the Care Standards Bill. As an interim measure, we are planning to introduce a voluntary accreditation scheme for independent fostering agencies.
If a local authority decides to place a child with a foster carer operating in the independent sector, it is a matter for that authority to satisfy itself that they are getting quality and value for money from the agency. This requirement is set out at Standard 24 of the recently launched National Standards for Foster Care, which seeks to underpin the provision of high quality foster care for children and young people throughout the United Kingdom.
We are aware that local authorities tend to pay considerably higher weekly rates for foster care when that care is through independent foster agencies, rather than directly through local authority foster carers. At least to some extent, this results from the extra functions provided by agencies and the particular needs of the individual children. We have no control over the rates paid by local authorities to independent fostering agencies or to their own carers. This is, however, an issue that we are looking at in the context of the Quality Protects programme, and in particular in relation to our plans to improve the number and quality of placement options for looked after children.
173WWe are unable to provide a breakdown between local authority and independent sector foster care charges, as such figures are not collected centrally. We do, however, have information on the overall amount spent on local authority foster placements and for 1997–98 (the latest year we have available) the gross expenditure figure for England was £339 million. £15 million was also spent on children in other community placements.
There is also a Social Services Performance Indicator that showed the reported unit cost of foster care (gross weekly expenditure per child looked after in foster care) as £199 for 1998–99 and £211 for 1997–98.
Officials in the Department have had some discussion with representatives of the independent foster care sector about ensuring good quality standards, and these will be continued in the context of the voluntary accreditation scheme.