The Group Manager Childrens Regulated Services submitted a report to Committee with a proposal to establish and provide an in house parent and child fostering service and also to update the Committee on the current arrangements for commissioning the placements from external providers and outlined the potential benefits of taking a new approach which included reduced costs.

The Group Manager Childrens Regulated Services explained that BCBC was currently unable to provide an in-house service offering parent and child fostering placements. She explained that if required, parent and child (typically mother and baby only) placements were provided by commissioning the placements through a range of independent fostering agencies (IFA’s) via the children commissioning support resource (CCSR).  She added that the cost of commissioning the external parent and child placements was

significant, totalling an expenditure of £248,256.06 in 2014/2015.

The Group Manager Childrens Regulated Services informed Members that it was determined via the Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4C’s) that there was a gap in provision for parent and child placements across Wales and in response a number of the larger independent fostering agencies (IFA’s) established such a provision, within the framework parameters. Currently, the standard level 1 parent and child placement costs were £1,364.70 per week and a level 2 placement costs were £1,650 per week. Placements were initially set up for a 12-16 week assessment period but could last the length of care proceedings, namely 26 weeks.  She added that the Local Authority commissioned 12 parent and child placements in 2014/2015, 11 at level 1 and 1 at level 2, resulting in a cumulative spend of £247,656.25.    The Group Manager Childrens Regulated Services further added that as at 18th September 2015, there were 13 active mother and baby placements that had, in the financial year, cost the Local Authority £266,587.03 and as at the 31st October 2015 we have 8 referrals (a further 3 at the time of Committee) for potential parent and child placements for unborn babies.

The Corporate Director Social Services and Wellbeing concluded that she was positive that BCBC could provide a better in house service which would also include a provision for the fathers which was currently not on offer through the IFAs

A Member welcomed the report and stated that were would be a lot of positives to come from it, he added that it was good that BCBC would be able to keep more children in the Borough and was pleased to hear that the standards would not be lowered.

A Member asked how the cost savings were so high which equated to an almost 50% saving, he was concerned that BCBC would have to lower the standard of service in order to achieve such a high level of savings.  The Group Manager Childrens Regulated Services stated that there would be no difference in the level of service offered with the in house provision and that the costs were currently high because there was a niche in the market so the IFAs were making  ...  view the full minutes text for item 116