Regional care co-operatives (RCCs) are to take responsibility for children's placements across England from individual local authorities, Josh MacAlister has said.
The children's minister told sector leaders that the government would speed up the rollout of RCCs and saw them as "the future basis for creating homes for children in care", in a speech last week.
RCCs were conceived of by MacAlister in his 2021-22 Independent Review of Children's Social Care as a response to the insufficiency of appropriate local placements for looked-after children. They then became part of the Conservatives' children's social care reform agenda, from 2023-24, and were subsequently taken up by the current Labour government on its election last year.
By lodging responsibility for commissioning at a regional level, RCCs are designed to give councils, collectively, a greater ability to shape the market, meaning they are less at the mercy of providers charging excessive prices due to placement scarcity.
Early days for new model of commissioning
The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill gives the government the power to direct two or more local authorities to form co-operatives in their areas.
However, the two regions testing RCCs - Greater Manchester and South East - only launched their co-operatives in April and June of this year, respectively.
And while the first Department for Education-commissioned evaluation of RCCs was published last week, this covered the pathfinders' early implementation, with the outcomes they are achieving being assessed in future reports.
Despite this, MacAlister told the National Children's and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) last week that he would soon "set out plans that explain how the system will move towards regional care co-operatives, as the future basis for creating homes for children in care".
What are regional care co-operatives?
The DfE has stated that RCCs should, as a minimum:- Work with the NHS and criminal justice agencies to analyse regional data and forecast the future demand for homes for children in care.
- Develop and publish a strategy outlining current provision and identifying actions needed to address any gaps in care.
- Act as a single customer for external care providers across the region to commission the required placements in order to meet need and improve value for money.
- Create new care provision in response to identified gaps.
- Have a regional recruitment hub to recruit new foster carers and enhance support for all carers.
- Have robust leadership and governance structures to enable swift decision making and long-term investment.
Regional commissioning 'future of care system'
MacAlister positioned RCCs as a solution the issues he said were afflicting the care system: insufficient foster carers, with a lack of "family-based homes" for children where they needed them, "increasing and inappropriate use of residential care" and "profit extraction in a failed market model, where local authorities have lost control of creating the homes children need".
RCCs, said MacAlister, would bring "greater expertise, focused leadership and management" and the economies of scale necessary to "create the variety and quality of homes children deserve".
Though they would work across a region or sub-region, they would be"held to account for finding homes close to where children already have connections".
He added: "This won’t happen everywhere all at once but I do want to be clear - the government’s policy is to speed up the roll out of RCCs and for this to be the future model of the care system."
What early evaluation of regional co-operatives found
The DfE-commissioned evaluation of the pathfinder RCCs found both had demonstrated progress towards meeting the department's six minimum requirements (see box, above), though this appeared least developed in relation to recruiting and supporting foster carers.
Both had prioritised providing homes for children closer to home and interviewees from the regions said progress had been made through the creation of new placements. Challenges highlighted in the report included delays in changing approaches to commissioning because of the need to get sign-up from all local authorities within the region.
As well as setting out plans to roll out RCCs, the government will also publish plans shortly to "significantly expand the number of foster carers in England", MacAlister told NCASC delegates, echoing comments he made in a parliamentary debate at the start of the month.
Cap on care provider profits signalled
MacAlister also signalled that the DfE was inclined to implement the cap on the profits of non-local authority children's social care providers that the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill provides for.
Under the legislation, this could only be implemented if the government was satisfied that it was necessary.
In a question and answer session following his NCASC speech, MacAlister said the DfE would first use powers, also provided by the bill, to scrutinise the finances of those providers that would be difficult to replace were they to exit the market.
He said this would provide "transparency around the top providers and what is going on in the market", adding: "Once we know that we will be able to make a decision about whether to turn on the profit cap. We all in this room know what things are like at the moment - so read between the lines."
