ADCS president warns of 'untenable' risks posed by placement capacity crisis
Fiona Simpson
Thursday, July 6, 2023
Risks to children in care posed by a lack of placement capacity and exacerbated by a profit-based system are becoming “increasingly untenable”, the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) has warned.
In his opening speech at the ADCS conference 2023, which is taking place in Manchester, John Pearce told delegates: “The number of children in care has increased annually yet capacity across the system has not. In market economics, the simple response to demand is to increase supply. When some of the biggest providers are bank rolled by private equity, is it any wonder that supply is stifled?
“The risks are becoming increasingly untenable and we owe it to children and young people to get this right. At first glance it may look like local authorities hold all the cards, but that just isn’t the case, we need the full backing of the government to shift not just the narrative but the reality.”
He added that the majority of care placements are now provided by the independent sector, warning that “flipping a switch” to return responsibility to councils and the voluntary sector could further exacerbate the capacity crisis.
“The risks are too great for us to carry alone and the consequences for children in terms of disrupting settled, stable homes, cannot be understated.
“This isn’t a ‘private bad, public sector good’ argument, we’ve long had a mixed economy, but the balance has tilted too far,” Pearce, who is director of children’s services at Durham County Council said.
He went on to criticise a recommendation made in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care for regional care cooperatives (RCCs) which has been taken forward by the government.
The plans are set to pilot in two areas from spring next year.
He said RCCs had been put forward as a “panacea” to commissioning issues in children’s social care, raised by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in its report which branded the market “dysfunctional”.
“I can say with certainty that RCCs, as currently defined, will not address the issues that ADCS has been raising for a number of years, which have now also been voiced by the CMA,” Pearce concluded, highlighting the publication of a position paper by ADCS on an alternative plan for regional care commissioning.
