Issue - meetings
Children's Residential Care Fee Increase
Meeting: 03/10/2016 - Cabinet (Item 44)
44 Children's Residential Care Fee Increase 
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Minutes:
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Councillor Tony Smith, Cabinet Member - Children and Family Services, said:
“Making sure our most vulnerable young are people are safe, protected and enabled to reach their full potential is our most enduring responsibility. We have important, and rapid, improvements to make to areas of our services and we are committed to achieving them.
“We are proud of our high numbers of dedicated foster carers who do an outstanding job with some of our most vulnerable children, but we recognise that for a small number of children and young people residential care best meets their needs. We want Wirral children to be placed in Wirral. We will work with our partners and the residential care provider market to develop more locally-based places for children with more complex needs, including brothers and sisters who need to stay together, teenagers with challenging behaviour and children and young people who may be at risk of sexual exploitation. By placing these children in Wirral we will be able to wrap services around them more effectively, responding to changes and so keeping them safe. We will keep a sharp focus on these children through crisper, outcome-focused care planning, listening to children’s voices and encouraging their ambition.
This report helps us to maintain the quality of our residential care services and develop this more specialist provision in the borough. This is vitally important for those young people who are in the care of the Council.”
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Councillor Tony Smith introduced a report by the Interim Strategic Commissioning Manager. It informed that the Local Authority had a duty to provide or procure placements for Children Looked After (CLA) which was explicit in the Children Act 1989. This had since been strengthened by the introduction of Sufficiency Statutory Guidance (2010) and the Care Planning, Placement and Case Review Regulations (April 2011).
There was also a duty of ‘sufficiency’ that required Local Authorities and Children’s Trust partners to ensure that, through provision or commissioning, a range of placements sufficient to meet the needs of all CLA were available locally or that there was a plan in place to move towards that position.
Residential fees had remained static over recent years, due in part to the framework agreements negotiated and agreed by Placements North West (PNW), a regional consortium of 22 local authorities. However, the implementation of the National Living Wage (NLW) had seen wages rise from £6.50 in 2016-16 to £7.20 in 2016-17 with expected increases to over £9.00 by 2020. Other factors driving fees increases included:
· The EU Working Time Directive (sleeping nights)
· Wage increases across the sector to maintain career structures and pay differentials
· Inflation
· Pension costs
The Cabinet was informed that Wirral’s use of external placements was low compared to other local authorities. 13% of Children Looked After were placed externally compared to the North West (29%) and England (34%) averages. (This measure included residential care and independent foster carers). In addition there was a higher fostering to residential ratio ... view the full minutes text for item 44