Source · Select Committees · Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
Recommendation 13
13
Accepted
Paragraph: 78
Review ways to facilitate local authority collaboration for direct delivery of children's care services.
Recommendation
The Government should support local authorities by reviewing possible ways of facilitating greater collaboration across local authorities so that they can collectively deliver more children’s care services directly rather than through private suppliers.
Government Response Summary
The government commits to supporting greater collaboration among local authorities for collectively delivering care services, citing ongoing co-design work and the Regional Care Cooperative pathfinder programme. It also provided capital funding to increase local authority provision and will publish proposals to combat profiteering later this year.
Paragraph Reference:
78
Government Response
Accepted
HM Government
Accepted
16. At the Spring Statement, the Government announced funding to reduce local authority overspends on children’s social care places across England by making 200 additional child social care places available and reducing local government reliance on costly emergency places for children. £165 million of funding will be used to create the additional places to help tackle last year’s overspend of £670 million. 17. The Government will provide £45 million to match funding to local authorities to build an additional 200 open children’s home placements, and invest £120 million to fund the maintenance of the existing secure children’s home estate and rebuild Atkinson Secure Children’s Home and Swanwick Secure Children’s Home. 18. The Government will continue to support greater collaboration across local authorities to collectively commission and deliver care services. We are working with the sector and with partners such as health and youth justice to co-design this. Last year, we invited local authorities to express an interest in being one of the pathfinders for the Regional Care Co-operatives (RCCs) programme. We are currently in negotiations with two regions about becoming RCC pathfinders and will announce the regions shortly. 19. The Government is also providing support for councils to increase their own provision and reduce reliance on the private sector. At SR21, the Government committed £259 million in capital funding over the SR period and, at Spring Budget 2024, announced an additional £165 million over the next four years. Nevertheless, we recognise that sometimes private placement costs are too high, and that council taxpayers are stuck footing the bill. The Government’s position is that it has an issue with profiteering rather than profit, and through the reforms to children’s social care it will continue to explore what action is needed to best support councils. The Government will be developing proposals on what more can be done to combat profiteering, bring down costs and create a more sustainable market for residential placements which it will publish later this year.