CYP Now - Children’s services leaders slam CMA’s failure to recommend price cap for private placements

The competitions watchdog’s failure to recommend a cap on high costs charged for children’s social care placements by private providers has been branded “disappointing” by children’s services leaders.

Charlotte Ramsden: 'Profiteering through public money on the basis of meeting children’s needs is unacceptable'. Picture: ADCS

Limiting profits for private companies risks “reducing incentives to bring new capacity to an already underserved market”, according to a major report by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) into profiteering in the children’s social care system.

They would also be “very difficult to design and administer effectively” due to varying levels of need between individual children.

Charlotte Ramsden, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), said the CMA’s failure to recommend a price cap on expensive placements for vulnerable children is “disappointing”.

The ADCS has long called for an end to profiteering from children’s social care by large private providers.

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