Children: Social Services
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment her Department has made of the impact of private equity investment on the performance of (a) children’s homes and (b) fostering services.
Answered by Josh MacAlister
The Competition and Market Authority study into children’s social care did not find evidence that, on average, private provision was of lower quality than local authority provision. The study did not include a breakdown of private equity-backed investment
The department is taking forward a package of measures to fix the broken care market, which includes introducing a financial oversight scheme covering the most “difficult to replace” providers, improving placement data to give local authorities the information they need to assess prices, and supporting the creation of Regional Care Cooperatives to improve forecasting and commissioning of placements and ensure local authorities can secure the best placements at a price that is fair to the taxpayer.
Our ambitious fostering action plan sets out urgent steps to reverse the decline in foster carers and reform the system. This includes our commitment to create 10,000 more foster places by the end of this Parliament, backed by £88 million over the next two years.
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