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Tuesday, May 30, 2023

| CYP Now

Faced with a 25 per cent rise in children in care over the past decade and funding levels that have failed to keep pace with this demand, some local authorities have struggled to ensure there are enough placements in their local area to meet the number and needs of children.

Step-down service improves placement stability

Best Practice

Tuesday, May 30, 2023

| CYP Now

In-depth assessments identify ways to support young people from residential homes into foster care delivering placement stability and reducing council costs.

Commissioning Care: Special Report

Tuesday, June 21, 2022

| CYP Now

Recommendations in the Care Review aim to improve co-ordination and management in the care market while driving down costs for councils, but some believe the proposals do not go far enough.

South East pilot gives care providers equal stake in developing placement contracts

Tuesday, May 25, 2021

| CYP Now

Pilot project attempts to give care providers an equal say with councils in drawing up plans for care placements.

Peterborough contract collapse: key reasons and its implications

Analysis

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

| CYP Now

Seen as a blueprint for future charity and council partnerships to deliver children’s services, the £126m contract between Tact and Peterborough City Council has ended after just three years. Experts assess what can be learned.

Commissioning: Foster care relative costs

Thursday, January 2, 2020

| CYP Now

Children’s services commissioners need to take into account the relative costs of in-council foster placements, says Andrew Rome.

Evaluation of Regional Adoption Agencies 2018-19

Research

Thursday, January 2, 2020

| CYP Now

This report presents findings from the first stage of the three-year evaluation of regional adoption agencies (RAAs).

Shared Services: Special Report

Thursday, January 2, 2020

| CYP Now

Fresh evidence suggests collaboration is helping local authorities to find a wider range of care options for vulnerable children and introduce a greater array of good practice approaches to improve outcomes.

Councils look to unite to deliver children's social care, survey finds

Monday, August 7, 2017

| CYP Now

A growing number of councils plan to join forces to run children's social care services, a government survey of children's services leaders has found.

DfE study to inform Spending Review 'not completed in time'

Friday, December 4, 2015

| CYP Now

A study ordered by the Department for Education (DfE) in order to inform decisions made at last month's Spending Review about how children's services will be funded over the next five years is yet to be completed, CYP Now can reveal.

Children in Care: Policy and Practice

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

| CYP Now

Special supplement on the latest innovation and implementation of policy reforms to enable children in care to lead healthy, happy lives.

Martin Narey's resignation statement

Thursday, November 19, 2015

| CYP Now

Sir Martin Narey took to social media network Twitter to announce his resignation from the Adoption Leadership Board.

Narey quits as head of Adoption Leadership Board

Thursday, November 19, 2015

| CYP Now

Sir Martin Narey has quit as head of the Adoption Leadership Board, the influential body set up by the government to drive through reforms to the sector.

Cameron speech reignites debate over children's services 'market'

Monday, September 28, 2015

| CYP Now

The Prime Minister highlighted children's social care as ripe for reform in a speech this month, with failing services handed to trusts or other providers to run. Children's services experts give their views on what this means for the years ahead

Drop in number of children approved for adoption continues

Friday, August 28, 2015

| CYP Now

Numbers of children being approved for adoption are continuing to fall, it has emerged.

Foster carers reject Staying Put over lack of financial support

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

| CYP Now

Foster carers are reluctant to allow young people to remain with them until they are 21 because of a lack of financial support for the flagship government policy, it has emerged.

Funding for children's charities cut by £150m

Monday, June 8, 2015

| CYP Now

Charities working with children and young people have lost more than £150m of government funding in the past year, it has emerged.

Somerset sacks £320k DCS over 'too little, too slow' progress

Monday, October 20, 2014

| CYP Now

Somerset County Council has announced it has terminated the contract of the interim director of children's services (DCS) for failing to deliver improvements at the struggling authority quickly enough.

Cost of foster care recruitment explored: agencies vs in-house

Monday, October 13, 2014

| CYP Now

Public sector consultant Impower has calculated that local authorities could save £150m by placing more fostered children with their own carers, but independent providers say its analysis of the costs and benefits is flawed.

Slough children's services to become independent trust

Wednesday, October 8, 2014

| CYP Now

Slough will become the second local authority to have its children's services transferred to an independent trust after children's minister Edward Timpson dismissed council proposals for alternative arrangements.

Blackpool children's services 'require improvement'

Tuesday, September 9, 2014

| CYP Now

Children's services in Blackpool are improving but problems remain with support for care leavers and planning for looked-after children, inspectors have found.

Children's services in Manchester receive 'inadequate' rating

Thursday, September 4, 2014

| CYP Now

Nearly 500 children in Manchester were potentially left at risk because social work assessments were not carried out quickly enough, a report that has rated the city's children's services as "inadequate", has found.

Costs of children in care hit £3.4bn

Thursday, August 21, 2014

| CYP Now

The cost of supporting children in care has reached £3.4bn, according to an Audit Commission report that exposes widespread variation of spending across councils.

Daily roundup: Haringey Ofsted, early intervention guidebook, and term-time holidays