"Fishing? I love it," says Paul. This may not sound that unusual for a16-year-old boy, but Paul is from Tower Hamlets, in London, whereopportunities for fishing are limited. For the last eight years he'sbeen in care and, after a short-term placement near home, he moved toKent where he's now happily settled with a foster family.
"At first it was weird coming to Kent, as Tower Hamlets is very builtup," says Paul. "But I adjusted really quickly and found loads to do. Idid miss my friends in Tower Hamlets for a while, but it's easier tomake friends in Kent than in London, as they're more welcoming," headds.
"It's generally a nicer place to live."
Paul is clearly thriving in Kent - he's just got six GCSE passes and hasa place at sixth-form college to continue his education. But youngpeople like him are testing the mettle of policy makers, because hisplacement is "out of authority" - a long way from home and withinanother council's boundaries.
More than a quarter of looked-after children in England are placedoutside their home authority. In March, Lord Filkin, who was at the timethe minister with responsibility for children in care, wrote to allcouncils asking them to review the number of children they placed out ofauthority (Children Now, 9-15 March).
"For too many children, such placements are not in their bestinterests," he said. They're likely to achieve poorer education andother outcomes than those placed within their home area, pointed outFilkin. What's more, such placements are often very costly, but offerpoor value for money and are often not what children want.
The impact of this letter is still rippling through the sector, and whataction central and local government need to take to tackle the problemis provoking furious debate. In the North West, however, 12 councilshave swung into action by teaming up to reduce reliance on distantplacements, which cost them 150m a year.
As a result, in February this year, the Out of Authority Placement andJoint Commissioning Unit officially started work - the culmination offour years' planning. According to Roger Ellis, chief executive atRochdale council and chair of the group that set up the unit: "We areacutely aware that a significant number of children with complex needshave to be placed a long distance from home. It causes enormousdifficulties for these children and the agencies that have to supportthem. It also causes huge financial problems. So there seemed to begreat potential to get better value for money and better outcomes forchildren by working together."
Keeping tabs on placements
Hosted by Tameside council, the centralised unit supports all memberauthorities: Blackburn with Darwen, Blackpool, Bolton, Bury, Lancashire,Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside andWigan.
And it aims to ensure that all new placements are the mostcost-effective, appropriate and meet the needs of individualchildren.
The unit, which has received 30,000 this year from each memberauthority to fund its work, is co-ordinating a variety of projects. Theprocess of accrediting and monitoring all placement providers hasstarted, and from April next year, no local authority will work with aprovider that has had its accreditation deferred. "We won't fail anyone,but will give them an action plan to help bring their services up to ourstandards," explains Rosemary Cowgill, the unit's manager.
Improved commissioning of services is a key aim of the unit, althoughindividual placements remain the responsibility of each placingauthority.
A placement activity database will support this. "It will draw togetherinformation for analysis," reveals Cowgill. "For example, where are weplacing children and why? And what are the trends? All of this is neededto develop a proper commissioning strategy."
Quarterly provider forums also show the unit's commitment to workingwith the independent sector. "This is not about saying in-house isbest," states Cowgill, who admits that providers initially thought theunit's aim was to reduce costs. "We reassured them that it was not aboutreducing fees, but making efficiency savings and improving qualitythrough collaborative working."
An approach that works
The approach is clearly working - more than 100 providers attended thefirst forum in April. "Providers are willing to accept and trust thatthis will lead to improvements for young people and everyone concernedwith the system," says Andy Haines, chair of the provider forum andchief executive of the Boys and Girls' Welfare Society.
While he acknowledges that providers will have to adjust their servicesif distant placements are to be reduced, he is confident that this typeof partnership will succeed. "Details will be thrashed out in thefuture, but the number of providers at the first forum shows theirwillingness to engage with the issues. Everyone is interested indeveloping a range of flexible resources that meet the needs of ourchildren."
This is exactly the type of project that government inspectors wouldlike to see more of. The recent Safeguarding Children report by theeight chief inspectors of children's services claimed that there wasstill a long way to go, especially for children with complex needs, toprovide better access to placements nearer home (Children Now, 13-19July).
The failure of some councils to adequately monitor out-of-authorityplacements was also highlighted in the report - a problem compounded byineffective systems for checking whether looked-after children feellistened to.
Inspectors did highlight West Berkshire's Independent Visitor Mentoringand Advocacy Scheme as an example of good practice. About 20 per cent ofthe council's looked-after children are out of authority and are thescheme's priority, explains Andy Couldrick, head of West Berkshire'schildren's services. "The scheme gives young people time out of theirplacement, with someone who isn't connected to their social worker orcarer, to say if something is worrying them," he explains.
Moreover, the council has commissioned the charity NCH to provide the70,000 annual service to ensure that it's truly independent.Although most authorities have independent visitor schemes or children'srights services, Couldrick believes this initiative is marked out by itsproactive approach: children are regularly reminded through letters,magazines and at review meetings of the scheme's existence. "There's nopoint having a service if children don't know about it," he adds.
Unfortunately, there is currently no published comparative statistics onhow well looked-after children placed near to home do compared to thoseplaced far away, although the Department for Education and Skills hassaid it will undertake "detailed analysis of the relationship betweencase histories of looked-after children and the distance they are placedfrom home," (Children Now, 8-14 June).
"There's a tendency to over-simplify the problem, to say allout-of-authority placements are bad and too expensive," believes AndrewRome, chair of the Independent Children's Homes Association and managingdirector of Sedgemoor. "It tends to be the more challenging youngpeople, where other options have failed, that are placed out ofauthority," he continues.
"Therefore it's not surprising that their educational achievements areworse."
More generally, there is little agreement on how much out-of-authorityplacements cost, and the Government has again yet to publish detailedfigures.
According to Professor Harriet Ward, director of the Centre for Childand Family Research at Loughborough University: "When children areplaced out of authority, we've calculated that it costs nearly 100 more in staff time than if they're placed within authority. Most ofthis is incurred by social workers having to visit children inplacements."
But Paul Fallon, director of social services at Barnet council and theAssociation of Directors of Social Services' lead on out-of-authorityplacements, claims these placements cost about 800 a week overallcompared to 400 for similar in-authority places. And the SocialServices Performance Assessment Framework Indicators report for 2004reveals that the weekly unit cost for English local authorities' fostercare services is 234 compared to 765 for servicespurchased from independent providers.
Measuring outcomes
To complicate matters further, such figures don't address the biggerquestion of what quality services for vulnerable children shouldinclude.
It is for this reason that systems linking cost of placement to outcomesfor individual children are so important.
Sedgemoor is developing this method with Devon council. "We're lookingat linking fee structure to outcomes, which should lead to better localcommissioning," says Rome.
"At a simple level, this means that if the anticipated outcome is not asgood as hoped for, the fee paid is reduced. But exceptionally goodoutcomes can lead to a small premium."
Independent fostering providers are taking this approach one stepfurther.
In June, the national independent fostering providers' forum agreed todevelop a common model for measuring outcomes to help providers showcouncils what they achieve with children (Children Now, 22-28 June).
Kent is one of the most vocal councils in the out-of-authoritydebate.
A controversial report by its area child protection committee in Julyaccused councils of dumping vulnerable children far away from home. Itshowed that more than half of looked-after children in Kent are fromoutside the county, and one in four of all children in care are inThanet, one of Kent's most deprived areas (Children Now, 13-19 July).Suggestions for solving the problem include developing a surcharge forcouncils who place children in the area and the development of asub-regional commissioning forum.
But unlike the Out of Authority Placement and Joint Commissioning Unitin the North West, Kent has a policy of not placing their looked-afterchildren with independent providers. Oliver Mills, director of socialservices at Kent, argues that it's "wholly unproven" that theindependent sector gets better outcomes for children. "We place 98 percent of our looked-after children in-house and get good outcomes forthem - we're a three-star authority," he says.
This claim is hotly disputed by the independent sector. "We accept thatmost children should be placed nearer home," says Ian Dixon, chair ofthe Kent forum of independent fostering providers and manager of NextStep Fostering. "But we offer a higher level of choice. And more choiceequals more stability, which leads to better outcomes for children."
For example, Next Steps provides daycare for looked-after children notyet in school, as well as respite arrangements to support foster carerswho take on young people with challenging behaviour.
About 70 per cent of out-of-authority placements in Kent are from Londoncouncils, which are taking various steps to tackle the issue. A combinedapproach, which will most likely involve looking at which authoritiescould form natural groups to jointly commission services, is beingplanned and across the capital there are campaigns to increase the poolof local foster carers.
Further complications
But there are some who think this is not enough. For example, high houseprices in London mean potential foster families don't necessarily have aspare room, a prerequisite for fostering. So giving foster carers accessto key worker housing could help councils recruit more local carers'says Fallon (Children Now, 4-10 August).
Ian Wilson, corporate director of social services at Tower Hamlets, athree-star council, argues that his team don't use distant placementslightly. "We have to act in the best interests of children. Where asuitable placement for one of our children is in Kent, we are not goingto deny them this."
Back in Kent, Paul, who hopes to remain in his current placement untilhe is 18, stresses the importance of stability. "If you move about inplacements it takes away your trust in people," he concludes. "You findit hard to bond with people, as you don't know how long you're going tobe with them. It's harder to make friends when you're constantlymoving."
Further information To find out more about the work of the Out ofAuthority Placement and Joint Commissioning Unit, visitwww.ooap-jc.org.uk, and to take a look at the East Midlands RegionalProtocol, go to www.emleas.org.uk/pubeval/LAC%20Protocol.pdf
CASE STUDY
What the East Midlands Regional protocol can offer the area'slooked-after children
Frequently moving placements can make it hard for looked-after childrento do well at school. It can mean significant breaks in their education,particularly when a child moves to another authority.
In the East Midlands, nine local authorities have joined forces totackle this problem and have drawn up a regional protocol forlooked-after children.
Agreement over money is central to the partnership's success. "We havesaid we'll trust each other, which is revolutionary," reveals FrancesJames, assistant chief education officer at Derbyshire County Counciland chair of the region's Special Educational Needs PartnershipsManagement Group, which has developed the protocol.
"Although looked-after children don't always have special needs mostpartners in the group have responsibility for other vulnerable groups ofchildren as well," she explains.
When a child has a statement of special educational needs, or attends aspecial or hospital school, the placing authority has a statutory dutyto meet these costs even if the school is outside their councilboundaries. There is no such duty for children without a statement. Butcouncils signed up to the East Midlands protocol have agreed to trustwhat another authority says a child going to school in their area needs.The priority for behind-the-scenes negotiations is that there should beno delay in the looked-after child receiving appropriate educationalprovision.
As a result, each authority has two named officers from education andsocial care, although if the council has already integrated itschildren's services then one officer might be sufficient. "The officer'sjob is to be a conduit of information and be fixer if there areproblems," says James. "And if there's a problem, we have a commitmentfrom the chief executives that these people have power to sort it."
Using all the information
The East Midlands protocol also means that if a looked-after child isabout to move to a different local authority, the named officer mustensure that the receiving authority is told quickly and that as muchinformation as possible is given. And the named officers are responsiblefor ensuring that systems to do this efficiently are in place.
James hopes this protocol will be replicated across the country but, atthe moment, her favourite part is the two pages of signatures at theback of the protocol - which are all the directors of education andsocial services from Derbyshire, Derby, Nottinghamshire, Nottingham,Lincolnshire, Leicestershire, Leicester, Rutland andNorthamptonshire.
CASE STUDY
How Wales is blazing a trail with its national vacancy database
Wales is taking a major step in improving outcomes for looked-afterchildren by becoming the first country in the UK to introduce a nationaldatabase for placing children who are in the care of socialservices.
The Children's Commissioning Support Resource, which is backed by theWelsh Assembly, the Care Standards Inspectorate for Wales, the WelshLocal Government Association and the Association of Directors of SocialServices, will be available to all 22 councils in Wales and will befunded for the first three years by the Welsh Assembly. It includes anational vacancy database, which will show all vacancies in children'sservices, including foster placements, children's homes and specialschools.
The aim is to enable providers in the independent and public sector toregister places and allow social workers to search for a place thatmatches a child's needs. For example, social workers will be able toview what recent inspection reports have said about an establishment.And there are plans to develop the database to enable social workers tofind a placement within a certain area.
The tender for the software has just been awarded, and the project willbe piloted in the new year before the official launch in spring 2006.However, over time, it's hoped that the resource will enable councils tomonitor outcomes of placements and, if they wish, to collaborate onlonger-term commissioning strategies.
