Fostering in England, 1 April 2023-31 March 2024

The number of approved fostering households across England has been declining, with significant implications for fostering capacity in the coming years. This means there is an increasingly challenging environment for local authorities, who are experiencing a steeper fall compared to independent fostering agencies (IFA). IFAs have managed to maintain a more stable number of approved fostering households.

The decline in two-carer fostering households, again especially for local authorities, may limit local authority capacity to care for more complex children. Whilst this is an area in which IFAs have always provided additional, high quality fostering services, we also see a shift to IFAs caring for a much wider range of children. IFAs have a larger share of households approved for a range of types of care, suggesting greater flexibility in their capacity to meet diverse placement needs. This adaptability may be contributing to the stability IFAs have managed to maintain.

Apparent vacancies in the sector could be due to the challenge of matching children alongside other children in a fostering household. Local authorities and IFAs are rightly careful about matching children, even where a foster carer’s terms of approval might seem appropriate. Where there is a reluctance to secure an arrangement as a solo placement, foster carers may become disillusioned having understood that they would be caring ror more than one child. 

The children’s social care system is under significant pressure and burn out of both foster carers and social workers must be part of the explanation. Not least, that social workers unable to practise to their fullest potential are unable to support children as they need. Over stretched local authorities may also be having the unintended knock on effect of putting people off becoming foster carers or remaining as foster carers.

The increase in kinship carers is significant and kinship carers must be supported appropriately, for instance, through better partnership working to offer kinship carers a break with use of vacant places in fostering. Kinship carers may also be people who have considered fostering, so it may be that we are losing some mainstream foster carers to kinship. The same can be true in reverse, though - kinship carers may at some point become foster carers.

Government has decided to roll out the recruitment and retention hubs across England. This is premature, given the short time most have been operational, But, in the light of falling fostering capacity, it’s understandable that government hope these hubs will provide a possible solution. The hubs have excluded IFAs - this is a strategic error. Local authorities and IFAs are two parts of the same system, as this dataset demonstrates. Government policy should reflect this. We need to rid ourselves of historical divides and pull together to provide the high quality integrated fostering provision which our children and young people deserve.

Fostering in England 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024, Ofsted (7 November 2024)