Incentive payments: sector split over ethics and effectiveness

CYP Now’s Freedom of Information request responses show that just nine in 122 local authorities offer an incentive fee to attract new foster carers. Yet the use of such payments, sometimes known as “golden hellos”, has long been contentious across the sector – it has been common practice by independent fostering agencies for some time.

In 2016, Dave Hill, then president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), described the practice as “immoral and wrong”.

Latest Ofsted figures show that the number of foster carers in England has increased by four per cent since 2014, while there has been an 11 per cent rise in children in foster care.

However, with the cost of living for families increasing by 30 per cent according to latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, local authorities, including Hertfordshire, have highlighted the need for financial incentives to be promoted to attract new foster carers.

Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for social care, disputes this idea, saying those who sign up to be foster carers “tend to be people with big hearts and a spare room who welcome being part of a fostering community and making a difference in children’s lives”.

Chief executive of the National Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP) Harvey Gallagher suggests that despite demand for foster carers outstripping supply, “most local authorities acknowledge that this [incentives] is not the best way to operate”.

Both sector leaders and local authorities appear to favour the idea of offering a referral fee to existing foster carers who successfully recommend a friend or relative as a new carer.

In some cases, new carers are also paid a fee, but the majority of local authorities offer the incentive solely to the person making the referral.

Councils offering payments to recruit IFA foster carers has stoked fierce debate across the sector with experts describing this practice as “wholly unethical” which “undermines stable foster care for children”.

However, others believe this will soon become the norm to increase pools of in-house foster carers in struggling local authorities.

Calls have also been made for a national foster carer recruitment drive led by the government, similar to previous campaigns focused on adoption, and the introduction of separate inspections of local authority fostering services by Ofsted.

Here four experts share their views on the use of incentive payments by local authorities and the best ways in which to recruit foster carers.

BIG HEARTS VITAL
By Yvette Stanley, national director for social care, Ofsted

Anecdotally, we have been told that local authorities and IFAs are actively looking at ways that they can encourage people to come forward and to retain them.

However, in a long career in this area, I’ve never met someone who’s come into fostering for the money. They tend to be people with big hearts and a spare room who welcome being part of a fostering community and making a difference in children’s lives.

I think it’s about them feeling valued and supported by their fostering agency more than financial inducements.

With the highest number of children in care, despite a growth in foster care, demand is outstripping supply.

We also have a demographic issue: foster carers come from all backgrounds, all communities and can be older or younger, but we know that the profile of foster carers tends to be among the older age range with people perhaps coming to it after a career in teaching or care or social work. So we know that even if there was a static number of children needing care, we have to constantly stimulate supply.

It would be good to have a national spotlight shone on foster care, just as historically there has been on adoption. We think that all forms of care and all forms of permanency should be given equal attention, care and nurturing.

RECRUITMENT FOCUS
By Harvey Gallagher, chief executive, NAFP

Income is important for all of us, but it is not the most important factor for foster carers in choosing their agency. Overwhelmingly, independent fostering agencies do not offer financial incentives for existing foster carers to join them.

The aim of foster carer recruitment should be to add to the pool of carers, not move around the ones we have. NAFP has been clear about this position for a number of years.

That said, social workers and other professionals are offered financial incentives to change organisation. We should be applying the same judgments across the sector – foster carers are equally a vital part of the children’s social care workforce.

Most local authorities acknowledge that this is not the best way to operate. We should focus on recruiting new foster carers. Our main message to them should be about supporting children. Offering financial incentives to existing foster carers does not improve recruitment or increase the pool of foster carers, it just moves existing carers around and risks destabilising children and their foster carers.

Fostering agencies should continue to follow the highest standards of practice in social care and recruitment. There should also be ongoing oversight of an effective, consistent inspectorate.

Local authorities in England do not receive a separate Ofsted judgment on their own “in-house” fostering service and this limits transparency about how these services are performing.

Inspection also focuses too little on how effective local authorities are at commissioning IFAs. We should look at changing this.

OUTLAW PRACTICE
By Andy Elvin, chief executive, Tact Fostering

Some local authorities and independent fostering agencies pay carers to transfer to them from other local authorities and independent fostering agencies.

This is terrible practice and should be outlawed. Bribing carers to move agencies does not increase the number of carers, disrupts children and is wholly unethical.

However, referral schemes are perfectly permissible and lead to good outcomes.

About 50 per cent of our carers spend this money by putting it in their foster child’s savings or taking the kids on holiday. We pay about £1,000 to existing carers and we get many of our best carers via referrals.

I think these are good schemes and mean that we get great new carers into the system and increase the number of foster carers.

I am not sure that an incentive payment for new carers makes much difference. Becoming a carer is a big decision and takes six months. This is unpaid and requires quite a lot of the prospective carers.

It would be a better use of local authority resources to pay some sort of retainer for carers between children, as a reason we lose good carers is that they lose income when children move on and it can be a few months before they next have children placed with them.

RETENTION DRIVE
By Edwina Grant, chair, ADCS health, care and additional needs committee

We need many more carers to provide loving, stable homes for a growing number of children and young people in our care.

Despite the current pressure on budgets, local authorities continue to invest in recruitment campaigns to encourage people to open their hearts and homes to children who need it. Some local authorities may also offer financial incentives to widen their local pool of carers, alongside other benefits such as leisure passes.

The most important thing to consider is whether we have enough high quality carers who are motivated by improving children’s lives. The process for approving foster carers is rigorous and these processes are regularly reviewed. All of the foster carers I speak to want to foster so they can change a child’s life.

The practice of offering financial incentives is increasingly becoming the norm and will, over time, boost in-house provision and reduce costs in the longer term. As such, it’s likely that more local areas will follow suit. These decisions are taken locally and we believe it would be unhelpful to introduce a national level of incentive fee which would risk driving up costs in areas where a financial incentive isn’t already offered.

Instead, we urgently need a national recruitment and retention campaign, that is centrally funded, to ensure the right foster home is available at the right time, for every child.

We hope the Competition and Markets Authority study and the national review into children’s social care will address the shortage of appropriate placements.