When councils start offering payments of £1,500 to foster carers to sign up, as Oxfordshire announced last autumn, you know that it must be challenging times to recruit fostering families.
That local authorities are prepared to offer financial inducements to attract new foster carers should not be surprising – latest Ofsted data shows the number of new foster carers approved last year failed to keep pace with the rise in the number of children in care prompting the inspectorate to warn of a sector in “crisis” (see special report).
Councils saw a fall in foster care households in 2020/21, increasing the pressure to recruit more carers, whether new to the sector or already registered with another agency. Incentive fees are part of that equation and despite some raising concerns about this approach, it is unlikely to go away, unless outlawed by legislators (see analysis).
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