In a letter to Pickles, the bodies representing fostering providers, children's homes and special schools, say that procurement is too focused on cost rather than the needs of the child, is too bureaucratic and takes up too much staff time.
The Nationwide Association of Fostering Providers (NAFP), the Independent Children’s Home Association (ICHA) and the National Association of Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS) - which together represent 400 providers of children’s services, have called on Pickles to intervene.
The concerns were identified following a survey conducted by the organisations that found providers are spending increasing amounts of time filling in forms and that staff are regularly diverted from frontline services to manage "burgeoning bureaucracy associated with local authority contracts".
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