It took Josh McAlister, chair of the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, less than four months to conclude that the care placement market is “broken”.
In the review’s The Case for Change report, its first since being launched in March, McAlister sets out his initial thinking as to the current system’s failings, describing it as financially strained and risk-averse to the point of near collapse – “a 30-year-old tower of Jenga held together with Sellotape”.
Power imbalance
Among the many findings in the critical report, published in June, is that the ‘market for care’ and local authority commissioning and matching are not working. It blames this largely on the imbalance of power between councils and care providers who “set the terms of engagement” and are able to “fill their provision with ‘easier to manage’ children from across England and set whatever price they choose”.
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