LOCAL authorities are losing out to the independent sector in the competition for foster carers, says Community Care (May 8).

It reports that the director of social services at North Tyneside Council has called on the Government’s new National Partnership in Placement Forum to look into the independent sector’s role in providing foster care.

John Phillipson says his council has lost 63 placements and ten carers to independent fostering agencies (IFAs) over the past year. Seven more are threatening to leave, lured by the promise of better pay, higher allowances, 24-hour social work support and training. The extra costs of all this support are then shouldered by the council.

An estimated 15 per cent of the country’s 39,000 foster children are placed with IFA carers. An extra 8,000 carers are needed nationwide, a problem local authorities are hoping will be highlighted by Foster Care Fortnight, which began yesterday.

In North Tyneside, carers working for IFAs are paid around £150 more per child per week than the council. “I can’t see that we can ever be on a par with the private sector unless there is some kind of capping arrangement brought in,” says Paul Cook, children and families manager.

However, Gerri McAndrew, chief executive of the Fostering Network, says the problem is that councils do not know the “true cost” of fostering. “The majority of them still pay below our recommended levels,” she says.

Private agencies, and the foster carers who work for them, are not to blame, says an editorial. “The true cause of the crisis in foster care is underfunding of the system as a whole,” it says. It is now up to the National Placement Partnership to “gather persuasive evidence of the true cost of the fostering service young people need”.

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