The six largest foster care providers nationally own six independent fostering agencies (IFAs) which equates to around a fifth of all IFAs.
These six providers had offered 18,593 placements as of 31 March, the figures show.
The top two providers, The Outcomes First Group (Sscp Spring Topco Limited) and Nutrius UK Topco Limited, own 47 IFAs, offered 11,539 fostering places between them, making up 31 per cent of all places offered by private and voluntary IFAs nationally.
The Outcomes First Group offered 6,304 places while Nutrius UK Topco Limited offered 5,235 leading Yvette Stanley Ofsted’s national director for social care to warn that “narrowing the market” in this way could “store up trouble” for the future of the sector.
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