The Crisis In Foster Care In Scotland
Policy Paper
Credits — Common Weal Care Reform Group
Overview
This policy paper has been developed in response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the future of foster care.
This policy paper takes a very different approach from the consultation paper and the questions it asked, starting not just from aspirations but also from analysis of the issues affecting family-based care, how the current crisis has arisen and what steps are needed to ensure that a foster care service meets the needs of children who cannot live with their own families and delivers positive life outcomes for them.
The paper examines the nature of replacement family care, how it came into existence, its development over time and what can be done to address the critical decline in foster carer numbers, the operation of the regulatory framework, how foster carers are recruited, trained and supported and how a market that private sector organisations have been able to exploit has been created. The paper sets out constructive, evidence-based proposals for the development of a foster care service that is fit for purpose and can ensure that the children it serves are helped to achieve positive and equitable life chances and experiences.
Key Points
This policy paper was in written in response to the Scottish Government’s review of foster care.
Foster care is facing a crisis both in terms of falling numbers of carers and the increasing complexity of the demands placed on them. The Government consultation lacks serious analysis of either the patterns in foster care data or their causes. This is partly because the review starts not from the perspective of the current crisis but from the needs and interests of the deeply flawed ‘Promise’ policy.
The view of children in care is taken into account by the Scottish Government but the views of care-commissioning professionals and foster carers themselves are entirely absent.
The review expresses a goal of not-for-profit provision but fails to address the issue of for-profit foster services.
The number of children who need foster care who have experienced abuse or have substantial additional needs is increasing but neither this current review nor the Promise address this issue properly – nor do they look properly at the impact this has on foster carers.
Linked to this, the reasons why there has been a sharp decline in the number of people coming forward to become foster carers have not been explored making it difficult to solve a problem which has not first been analysed.
Children with complex needs remain placed with foster carers who have not been properly prepared to meet those needs. This is probably part of the reason that a substantial minority of cared-for children face being moved from placement to placement in any given year and over the course of their young lives.
Despite government rhetoric about keeping sibling groups together, few foster carers have the size of home to accommodate larger groups of siblings and as a result families continue to be separated when they go into care.
The regulations on foster care continue to allow the subcontracting of local authority responsibilities to agencies. While the regulations specify that these must be non-profit, a number of private companies have now joined in creating provision and these can transfer money to for-profit parent companies through service fees. These compete with local authorities to recruit care experts and foster carers. The Care Inspectorate has not investigated this practice or the often opaque finances of some involved.
Substantially more foster carers are leaving the system than are being recruited, underpinning this crisis. Independent providers spend more on recruitment and yet it is local authorities who successfully recruit more foster carers.
Forster carers differ from other care workers in that they are not employed but are rather ‘self-employed contractors’. The ways they are paid can be complex and no assessment has been made of this situation in the review.
The fees paid have been standardised to the extent that they now no longer reflect the needs of the child concerned. A residential care worker will be paid around £600 a week and gets pension contributions, sick pay and paid holidays. A foster carer is paid about £250 a week, gets none of those additionals and is effectively on a permanent 24-hour shift.
Because foster carers rely on the agency that recruited them for training, training levels vary significantly.
Those recruited to foster caring are mainly drawn from lower socioeconomic groupings so affordability and levels of support are very likely to be significant factors in the sharp decline in recruitment and retention.
Foster carers struggle to gain trade union representation because of their employment status. There is nothing in this consultation about the rights to collective representation for foster carers.
Despite the fact that the legislation and regulations stipulate the centrality of social workers in this process, they are almost completely absent from the Scottish Government consultation. Lack of social work support is a key weakness in the system as it stands.
There are therefore seven major issues that need to be addressed:
― There must be a proper review of funding to ensure that there are adequate resources in the system to deliver successful outcomes. In particular the ‘contractor’ model must be examined and an employment model of foster care explored. Funding consistency must be ensured to avoid recruitment competition.
― There must be an audit of the housing provision made available by foster carers to identify gaps in provision.
― There should be unequivocal, legally enforceable prohibition of financial gain being made from foster care. Only local authorities and registered charities should be allowed to operate as providers Create a nationally consistent curricula for training and continuing professional development of foster carers to ensure high-quality provision.
― Flexibility of role may help some foster carers make more use of their skills, but many of the issues around children in care are complex and these must not be addressed by replacing professional staff with partially-trained foster carers.
― Local control of fostering must be protected. From friends to school to access to birth family, children in care are not well served by moving them away from where they grew up. For this and other reasons, control of the system must remain local and be delivered by local authorities.
― There should be a thorough and ongoing analysis in each local authority area of the types and numbers of foster carers required to meet needs within local communities, along with the additional staffing requirements required to support them. That must mean enough social work contact time with foster children. Staffing should be at a level which will enable relationship-based practice which will require caseloads to be set at manageable levels. That means a reversal to cuts in core social work capacity in local authorities.
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This policy paper has been developed in response to the Scottish Government’s consultation on the future of foster care (The Future of Foster Care, Scottish Government, 2024).
It takes a very different approach from the consultation paper, starting not just from aspirations but also from analysis of the issues affecting family-based care, how the current crisis has arisen and what steps are needed to ensure that a foster care service meets the needs of children who cannot live with their own families and delivers positive life outcomes for them.
The paper examines the nature of replacement family care, how it came into existence, its development over time and what can be done to address the critical decline in foster carer numbers, the operation of the regulatory framework, how foster carers are recruited, trained and supported and how a market that private sector organisations have been able to exploit has been created. The paper sets out constructive, evidence-based proposals for the development of a foster care service that is fit for purpose and can ensure that the children it serves are helped to achieve positive and equitable life chances and experiences.
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Foster care was first acknowledged in Scotland in the Poor Law Act of 1579, which enabled a magistrate or justice to direct that a ‘beggar’s bairns’ be looked after by a person of the ‘honest estate’. The Poor Law Amendment Act (Scotland) of 1845 established a national ‘Board of Supervision’ which encouraged parochial authorities to ‘board out’ children rather than their being kept in poorhouses (Development of Children’s Care Services in Scotland, Kendrick,
Lux, McGregor & Withington, University of Strathclyde, 2020). Initially this was done with parental consent but by the 1880s boarding out was increasingly taking place against parents’ wishes. In England, around the same time, the Rev. John Armistead removed children from a workhouse in Cheshire and placed them with families. The authorities legally responsible for the welfare of children at the time paid the foster parents a sum equivalent to what it would have cost them to keep the children in the workhouse.
In essence this formed the key features of foster care for over a century. The responsible public body would place children with persons willing to provide a ‘boarding out’ service, for which they were given a sum of money for the child’s maintenance. What was not clear was whether an element of the funds given was to be considered recompense or if the whole sum was intended for the support of the child. This was only clarified in the 1980s when a specific fee element was introduced for foster carers, separate from the sum intended to clothe, feed and otherwise maintain the child.
From the outset, foster care was designed to provide replacement family care for children who, for a variety of reasons, were unable to live with their birth family. It was also founded on the belief that caring for children in replacement families was better than placing them in institutional or residential care establishments. Despite this, as late as the 1980s, the majority of children in out-of-home care were not placed in family settings but in residential units. Many of these units were large and often accommodated more than thirty children of all ages. From around the 1960s, research increasingly underlined the negative effect of institutional care of this kind on children’s life chances. Particularly for younger children, growing up without experience of family life did not enhance their socialisation nor prepare them effectively for life outside care. More recent research appears to indicate that children placed with foster carers are likely to experience better life outcomes than those in residential settings (Sacker, University College London, 2021), though this might to some extent be expected as residential care now focuses generally on older children with complex needs and disturbing histories. It should be noted that residential care is now generally provided in small units with qualified staff, thus can offer care to children whose needs could not currently be met in a family setting, for reasons we examine below.
Other policy, legislative and system changes resulted in children with different demographic characteristics entering the care system.
More younger children were entering the care system, and more of them for reasons of child protection. More children had been exposed to prolonged abuse and neglect. Poverty, addiction and mental health problems were increasing in communities. The challenges for foster care were therefore becoming more acute at the same time as local authorities were actively attempting to encourage many more people into fostering, in order to expand its capacity substantially.
In order to meet both the changing needs of children requiring care and the increasing demand for foster (as opposed to residential) care, major changes were needed to foster care provision. Greater complexity of child need and inadequacy of recompense (technically, foster carers were unpaid and the money they received was intended to maintain the child) made it increasingly difficult to recruit the numbers of carers needed to meet demand. In order to address these imperatives, it was recognised that to recruit a sufficient number of suitable replacement families it was necessary to introduce payment for their services and to provide them with training and support in carrying out the fostering task.
Over the last forty years, fostering has become a much greater and more significant part of the child care landscape. It has undergone many changes intended to sustain and to improve the service but in recent times it has become clear that, in its present form, it is no longer able to fulfil the demands placed on it. This is compounded by a steady decline in the numbers of individuals and families who are willing to offer a foster care service.
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Prior to the National Review of Foster Care in 2013 (Scottish Government LACSIG, 2013) the number of children in foster care had been increasing rapidly, from 4,007 in 2006 - 2007 to 5,279 in 2012, an increase of 32%. That number was sustained for a time but over the last five years has dropped back to 3,918. There is no mention of this trend nor what is happening to the children who are no longer looked after in foster care in the main body of the Scottish Government’s review. Neither is there any analysis of what progress has been made on implementing the recommendations of previous reports.
Though it has been evident for many years that the fostering role was becoming more complex and the foster care workforce contracting (without corresponding reduction in demand), the Scottish Government’s current review of foster care was precipitated by the Promise, the strategy for implementing the recommendations of the Independent Care Review of 2020 (Independent Care Review Scottish Government, 2020), rather than the crisis that has been unfolding over some time.
Much is wrong with the Promise, as Common
Weal has articulated (Empty Promise, Macleod,
Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2021; Over
Promised, Under Cared, Macleod & Smith, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2024). It did, however, get one thing right – care is about relationships and good care is founded on good relationships (What is Care? Smith, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2021). Despite this recognition, it failed to acknowledge that caring relationships must be developed mutually. It articulated only the child’s perspective (“you will grow up loved, safe and respected by 2030”). This failed to recognise the myriad reasons why people wish to foster children, how fostering fits with their own needs, lives and circumstances and the challenges inherent in developing such caring, loving and respectful relationships. Instead, the Promise merely articulated a number of demands, which do not appear to be founded on meaningful analysis of the reasons either of how foster carers might be enabled to develop these kinds of relationships not what might lie behind the negative feelings and impact that foster care has had on some children.
The inadequacy of this limited perspective starts from the fact that love, safety and respect cannot be created by diktat. Children need care from the state not solely because they lack birth families who love them, respect them or keep them safe.
Some children, indeed, survive in families where love, safety or respect may not correspond with what is deemed to be ideal. Conversely, many children in the care system are valued and deeply cared about by their families. Material poverty undermines the ability of families to be consistent in the care they offer; this has been the experience of many children entering care. The poorest families are many times more likely to lose care of their children than those who are more materially advantaged (Poverty, inequality, child abuse and neglect: Changing the conversation across the UK in child protection? Featherstone, Bywaters, Daniel et al, University of Huddersfield, 2017).
The perspective of foster carers themselves is, sadly and surprisingly, absent from the document. Of course, the views of children and young people are important, but in this context the ‘lived experience’ of foster carers should have been given equal prominence. Carers’ views, for example, on the skills and support they need to provide a family life experience to damaged children and young people who may display aggression, hostility and violence, or who may turn these behaviours inwards and harm themselves or put themselves at serious risk, should have been sought and responded to. Additionally, the review does not recognise the skilled assessment, analysis, training and support which social workers routinely bring to the process of developing caring relationships nor the social work contribution to safeguarding the children placed with foster carers and the foster families themselves.
The document does refer to the commitment in the Promise that ‘out of home’ care should not be provided for financial gain. It notes the requirement for providers to be ‘not for profit’ but fails to say anything about the continued ownership of independent foster care agencies by for-profit providers registered elsewhere or how money appears to be being transferred to parent companies via internal charges for services (see below). It acknowledges that the Care Inspectorate does not regulate this area of activity. This effectively opens the door to profit-making services. Though a move away from private care is suggested, much stronger proposals are needed than are contained in the consultation.
Flexible foster care is touted as a radical solution to current problems. Almost all of the examples of flexibility it offers are already in operation. There is no explanation of how working more flexibly will be rewarded, which could be a real deterrent to recruitment. There is also a real risk that lower-skilled, less-supported and less well-paid foster carers will be deployed to carry out tasks currently undertaken by qualified and salaried staff, such as providing parenting support and supervising family contact.
There is no critical analysis of the Promise’s commitment to placing sibling groups together nor of the fact that there are few foster carers with the physical space, never mind the emotional capacity, to accommodate large families. Families who enter the care system tend to be larger than average, so council services need to work together to support foster families in being able to keep them together.
While some of the proposals about providing more support nationally for foster care could be helpful, no commitment about ensuring equity of fees, maintenance payments and terms and conditions is made.
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Families have been facing increasing economic and social challenges over the last forty years as the neoliberal world order has become increasingly entrenched. Of course, the factors that bring children into the care system are usually those of the socio-economic inequality associated with poverty (The Spirit Level, Wilkinson & Pickett, Allen Lane, 2009), rather than poverty itself. Mental ill-health, learning disability and addiction frequently compound the problems generated by the lack of material resources. These difficulties, often faced by families who have the least support and capacity to address them, has resulted not only in children coming into care, but in increased social, emotional and behavioural challenges among those children. Many of them are facing these significant challenges as a result of their early experiences
in their birth families, where their physical, psychological and developmental needs were not being met (Child Care or Caring About Children, Macleod, Common Weal Care Reform Group,
2021). A recent study of more than 1,800 children ‘looked after’ in Scotland found that 91% had experienced maltreatment before being taken into care. The proportion of children with emotional and behavioural problems, as reported by caregivers, was five times higher than that seen in the general population (Permanently Progressing? Building secure futures for children, Whincup,
Cusworth, Grant, Jacobs, Hooper, Critchley,
Hennessy and Matthews, University of Stirling, 2019). This finding has enormous implications for foster care and foster carers, none of which have been sufficiently recognised either by the Promise or by the Scottish Government.
Forming and sustaining relationships is a twoway process. The individuals, couples and families who offer foster care are no different from others in a parental role in needing caring relationships, safety and respect. In general, they do their best to develop and sustain caring relationships with children whose prior experience can make it very difficult for them to forge trusting connections with adults and peers. In some cases, this can be manifested in extreme behaviours. Though many foster carers manage to form mutually safe, respectful and loving relationships despite children evidencing their distress in such dysfunctional ways, continued exposure to violence and destruction puts pressure on foster carers and is frequently instrumental in unplanned placement disruption.
The reasons behind the significant drop in the number of foster carers and the implications for children needing care, have not been examined. The financial arrangements surrounding foster care is a significant, if not the principal, contributory factor. Both the ongoing fees paid to foster carers and the funding of significant individual outgoings are inadequate. The Care Inspectorate’s Statistical Bulletin (Care Inspectorate, 2024), the main evidence provided in the consultation, highlights a major reason for potential foster carers being unable to take children is due to unsuitable or insufficiently large accommodation. Along with this, there is no consideration of whether the special employment ‘contractor’ status of foster carers should be changed or other factors which may deter people from applying, including fear of allegations and the consequences of these. Survey evidence suggests that over a third of carers have had an allegation made against them, so this is not an insignificant issue (State of Scotland’s Foster Care, 2019; Foster Talk, 2024). A national recruitment drive, as suggested in the consultation document, will make no difference unless these fundamental issues are addressed.
Relationships should be central to the design of the system for children in need of care but are completely omitted from the Promise and the Scottish Government’s consultation on foster care. The consultation itself fails to address the key challenges facing the foster care service and the staff who support it. The consultation document does not attempt to analyse the reasons why fostering needs to change, is more or less devoid of evidence for any of its proposals and does not explain how these proposals will make a difference.
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Out of a total number of children in foster care in 2023 (3,918), over 8% experienced unplanned disruption (Care Inspectorate, 2024, Fig 1.17). The real problem is greater as some local authorities move children from placements where caring relationships are fragile before they break down irretrievably. There is also a significant number of children in long-term foster care placements whose carers have periodic ‘short breaks’ or ‘respite’ from caring for them.
Unfortunately, the Scottish Government no longer publishes the cumulative number of foster placements experienced by children, only the number of placements experienced in a particular year. Many children have multiple moves within the care system or are returned home only to be readmitted to care shortly afterwards. Recent research in Scotland (Permanently Progressing? Building secure futures for children; Whincup, Cusworth, Grant, Jacobs, Hooper, Critchley, Hennessy and Matthews, University of Stirling, 2019) found that around 20% of children looked after away from home had three or four placements, and almost 5% had five or more placements. It is not unknown for even quite young children to have lived in more than ten different settings in the course of their lives. The latest official Scottish Government figures on children in out of home care (Children’s Social Work Statistics 2022 – 2023 – Looked After Children, Scottish Government, 2024) show that around 5% of children have had three placements in a year. As some children remain in care for years, it is likely that the total number of placements over their entire care experience will be several times higher. For those children showing behavioural manifestations of distress the total is likely to be higher still. This illustrates one of the major problems with the current system, which is bad for children and bad for foster carers. Local authorities continue to place children in foster care without ensuring that carers have a sufficient base of relevant knowledge, that they are adequately supported and that they are appropriately recompensed. In particular, independent (including private sector) fostering agencies offer placements purporting to be tailored to the needs of children with complex needs and behaviours which appear to be beset with the same difficulties. For children who already have difficulties in forming and sustaining relationships, repeated moves and disruptions exacerbate these problems and compromise their life chances further.
The Intensive Treatment or multi-dimensional foster care model (Treatment Foster Care Service Review, Millar & Burns, Glasgow City Integrated Joint Board, 2017) was an attempt to address these issues by wrapping a team of professionals around the foster carers of children who had been highly damaged and had multiple placements, or as an alternative to residential provision like secure care In Scotland (Alternatives to secure care and custody: guidance, Appendix 2 Intensive Specialist Fostering, Scottish Government, 2011). It was adopted in Glasgow but abandoned in 2017 due to cost, a legal challenge about employment rights and evidence that outcomes appeared no better than in other placements. That may have been an appropriate decision in relation to that particular scheme (though without longer term operation and examination of outcomes it is impossible to say), but the problem of how to care for such children and how to support foster carers in such circumstances has still not been addressed.
Cost has been a major factor in failing to re-establish the kind of intensively-supported family placement that can meet profound and complex need. It is likely that the children and young people for whom this scheme sought to provide are now ending up in residential schools and secure establishments.
Again, despite the grand aspirations of the Promise, families continue to be separated when placed in care. Unless there are more carers who can accommodate families of three or more this will continue to happen. When children are not returned home quickly, short-term placements can often become long-term and long term become permanent. Plans are then developed which often prioritise children being ‘settled’ over siblings being reunified. This can result in siblings never sharing a home or having the experience of being brought up together. Even in permanent foster care placements, many children have emotional ties to their own families. Foster carers do not always have the skills and experience necessary to engage with children’s own families constructively.
The demand for ‘Continuing Care’ from foster carers following a long-term placement has increased since the Children and Young People Act 2014 introduced a statutory duty of Continuing Care on local authorities until the age of 21 and of Aftercare until 26. The very real barriers to achieving this are not, however, acknowledged. Fees for ‘adult’ placement services are less than those for foster care, a change of registration status is required and, consequentially, a foster care resource is lost. The real costs of supporting a young person into adulthood in a way that mirrors what most families in the community would provide, including the time to support a young person during emergencies and difficult times are not acknowledged. As most foster carers are in lower household income categories, inadequate funding will limit their capacity to provide optimal support.
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The main body of the law regarding foster care and fostering services is now set out in the Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009 rather than primary legislation. These regulations set out the duties and functions of local authorities in relation to foster care. Regulation 38 in Part XIII does, however, allow councils to delegate certain of these functions (set out in Parts VI (Fostering Panels), VII
(Fostering), VIII (Fostering and Kinship Care Allowances) and X (Emergency Measures)) to ‘registered fostering services’ subject to a written agreement about what they will provide.
Registered fostering services, often termed ‘independent foster care agencies’, are defined as bodies other than local authorities which are registered with the Care Inspectorate to provide foster care. Under Section 59 of the Public Services Reform (Scotland) Act 2010, only organisations defined as ‘not-for-profit’ are permitted to register with the Care Inspectorate to provide adoption and fostering services.
Recent years have seen significant changes in foster care provision. Though charitable organisations have always been important contributors to the provision of out of home care, the number and nature of non-public agencies involved in foster care has changed, notably with the entry of private companies to the range of providers. The argument for this was that it would offer a wider skill set and a greater range of specialised provision as well as increased adaptability, particularly for children who have unusually complex experiences and difficulties.
The Care Inspectorate report does, indeed, show that independent services are generally awarded better grades than council services and that they are able to respond to enquiries from potential foster parents far more quickly. The reasons for this are not, however, analysed. Shortage of staffing and support resources in councils, rather than any deficiency in motivation and expertise, are likely to be underlying factors.
Care Inspectorate figures indicate that in 2024 there were a total of 56 local authority and ‘independent’ foster care services in Scotland (Care Inspectorate, 2024). Collectively they supervised 3,261 foster care households, an average of 58 carers per service. Significant costs are incurred as, to fulfil their statutory duties, each service has to employ a sufficient number of staff to carry out a variety of functions, such as management, financial control, supervision of foster carers, recruitment, administration and marketing. This affects the cost per placement, which will be reflected in the charges independent bodies make to the local authorities who use their services.
These foster care agencies are in direct competition with each other to recruit and retain carers. Most independent fostering agencies operate across a number of local authority areas and compete with councils to recruit foster carers. This means that the local authority does not have access to all carers operating within their boundaries. This creates two problems; one, that local authorities are then forced into trying to recruit foster carers from neighbouring areas (or even further afield), and, two, that more children are placed away from their homes, families, schools and communities – bad for children and far more costly for local authorities.
All IFAs are legally required to be ‘not for profit’. Many are, however, registered as companies which are obliged to report profits in the same way as other businesses, rather than being registered charities. They can be owned by profit making organisations whose ultimate owners are, in some cases, private equity funds based in tax havens. While the law requires IFAs that register as companies not to have shareholders to whom dividends would be payable, in recognition of the requirement to be ‘not for profit’, evidence suggests that large amounts of money are being transferred out of IFAs to profit making parent companies through ‘internal’ fees for services, financial charges and interest free and unsecured loans to group undertakings (see Appendix).
The Care Inspectorate, which is responsible for registering and overseeing these services, appears to have been doing nothing to stop this. The complex company structures being used by these groups and the widespread use of exemptions in the Companies Act to avoid reporting their activities should be reason enough for the Care Inspectorate to have investigated this matter but it has failed to do so. It is an unfortunate comment on the Scottish Government’s declaration in the Promise that no children’s service should be operated for financial gain that it is allowing the law to be subverted in this way.
The money that these profit-making companies are extracting out of the childcare system comes at the expense of local authorities and foster carers. The duplication of infrastructure, marketing, recruitment, training and other services adds further to the costs.
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The total number of households prepared to foster has been reducing for some time but dropped by over 15% between 2018 and 2022 from 3,758 to 3,261 households. In this time the recruitment of foster carers has almost halved from 370 to 190 a year so that far more foster carers are now leaving services than are being recruited (Care Inspectorate, 2024 Figs 1.1, 1.7 and 1.10). This is a growing crisis.
While the IFAs receive over four times the number of enquiries about fostering than do local authorities (Care Inspectorate, 2024 Fig 1.11), a reflection of what they spend on advertising, very few of these enquiries result in applications and local authorities still attract more applications. While the reduction has affected both the public and independent sectors, it has been slightly higher among local authority carers, possibly because many are reaching retirement age and there are not enough new carers being recruited to compensate for this loss. The shortage of foster carers has added to the pressure on the system.
Foster carers are also increasingly being approved for more types of placement – emergency, short-term, long term (Care Inspectorate, 2024 Fig 1.4). These include an increasing number of unaccompanied asylumseeking children, who, of course have highly specialised cultural, language and social support needs. These new and diverse requirements can only result in good quality care if foster carers receive more training and better support than is presently the case.
While foster carers form a key part of the social care workforce their employment status differs from that of other care workers. They are not employees but are legally defined as self-employed contractors with no employment rights and no pensions, holidays or sick pay. Instead, they receive a fee for their services (which is given a specific status in tax legislation) and an allowance for the maintenance of each child they look after, usually increasing in line with the child’s age. They also receive training and support from supervising social workers and often receive additional financial support from the local authority in respect of costs not covered by the regular maintenance allowance such as equipment for specialised hobbies and interests that children may have, or costly school trips. There is no analysis in the Scottish Government’s consultation about the effectiveness of this financial framework, or of the support offered. The dramatic drop in the number of foster care households suggests that it is not sufficient.
The Scottish Government has gone to significant effort to standardise the allowances paid for children but neither they nor the fees paid reflect the needs of the child, the financial costs to the foster carer or the time involved. Despite often being ‘on shift’ 24 hours a day seven days a week foster carers receive considerably less, pro rata, than residential childcare workers. Residential child care officers with an HNC at the bottom of the pay scale are generally paid the equivalent of around £600 for a 37-hour week. They have paid holidays, pension contributions and sick pay over and above this. A level 2 foster carer (i.e. one who has undertaken additional training) in a local authority will receive a fee of around £250 per week, with no pension, holidays or sick pay. The fee will of course only be paid when a child is in placement.
Foster carers are dependent on the agency with which they are registered for training, support and advice, which can vary considerably in quality and quantity. Cuts to budgets, particularly in local government, have undermined the consistency and volume of the support
provided. Most foster carers are drawn from lower socio-economic quintiles. Managerial and professional occupations accounted for only a small percentage of the fostering workforce (The demographic characteristics of foster carers in the UK: Motivations, barriers and messages for recruitment and retention, Institute of Education, University of London, 2012), thus rates of remuneration are a significant factor in recruitment and retention. Variation in payment practices across agencies does nothing to enhance the pursuit of consistent quality.
While part of the remit of The Fostering Network, a national voluntary body, is to support foster carers and represent fostering in a general sense, it does not have a specific advocacy role nor does its remit include collective bargaining. As a consequence of foster carers’ selfemployed status, they have faced difficulties in joining the trade unions that represent the rest of the social work and social care workforce. Because of this, in response to the increasing pressures they experience, some have started to organise themselves through the National Union of Professional Foster Carers, a UK Government certified trade union, and through the Independent Workers Union of GB (Foster Carers Branch) which operates in Scotland. There is nothing in the Scottish Government’s consultation about the right of foster carers collective interests to be represented in Scotland.
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It is very clear that the quality of foster care provided by local authorities or fostering agencies depends heavily on the central role of social workers to recruit, assess, prepare, support and train foster carers and to support the children in their care. This is recognised fully in the guidance set out in the regulations. The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations
(Scottish Government, 2009) and Adoption and
Children (Scotland) Act 2007 were superseded by
2011 guidance Part 7 that states;
“The quality of the assessment of new foster carers will depend on the knowledge and experience of the staff carrying out the task. The agency must ensure that it has sufficient appropriately qualified social workers to prepare and assess applicants. This includes having the skills, knowledge and confidence to carry out the task, supported by a robust management and training structure. Assessing workers’ need opportunities, both to develop their skills and to keep in touch with best practice in preparing, assessing and supporting carers and also with information about placement outcomes for children.”
Despite this explicit guidance, the consultation, whilst proposing many changes to the types of foster placements and the range of services they provide, has lost sight of the role of social workers and fails entirely to look at what these proposals will mean for the workforce at a time when social work services across the country are under massive pressure. Workforce pressures were recognised by the Promise from the outset. Despite stating that, “The workforce needs support, time and care to develop and maintain relationships” and “Scotland must hold the hands of those who hold the hand of the child” it has subsequently failed to ensure that social work staff do have the time and support to develop the relationship-based practice key to assessing and supporting foster carers and supporting the children for whom they care. This failure was identified in Common Weal’s critique of the Promise, Empty Promise which commented, “… the critical contribution that the social work profession can and does make should receive greater priority.”
The implications of the consultation for the social work workforce are significant and substantial but there is no meaningful evidence of any attempt made to include its voice. This is a significant omission. We know, from a number of surveys conducted over the past few years (Keeping the Promise, UNISON Scotland 2021; Setting the Bar, Social Work Scotland, 2022) of increasing concerns that social work workloads have become unmanageable, and that social workers in local authorities and health and social care partnerships are struggling under the weight of their caseloads.
Most recently What needs to change to support Social Work in Scotland? (Social Work Scotland, 2024), conducted as part of the discussion on the proposed National Social Work Agency, found that “the context within which professional social work is being practised in 2024 is perhaps the most challenging since its inception. Lack of resources in local government, the NHS and the third sector have increased pressure on social work staff significantly, including higher caseloads, increased unpaid work out of hours and stress at an all-time high.” The reality is that no thought has been given in the Scottish government’s vision for foster care to the role of social workers, even though it is central to having well prepared, well supported foster carers who are able to take on caring for children and young people with a wide range of needs and challenges.
Lack of adequate investment has meant that any expansion in the social work workforce has not kept pace with up with the demands placed on it. Workers no longer have the considerable time required to build relationships with foster carers throughout the assessment process, to train them adequately and appropriately nor to support them properly following approval. Staff whose role is to support children placed in care settings are also unable to give the kind of service they want to, and, more importantly, that helps looked after children develop and grow in the best and most functional way. Increasing amounts of time are being devoted to fulfilling the ever-growing administrative requirements of a system founded on regulation, bureaucracy and scrutiny rather than on professionalism, relationship building and reflection.
Until the workforce problems are tackled with an increase in core funding to enable the recruitment and retention of skilled and well managed staff and the provision of necessary infrastructure, the aspirations set down in the consultation document and, indeed, in the Promise itself, will be no more than a pipe dream.
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The demands on foster care are increasing and
its availability declining. Policies of austerity and cuts to local government budgets mean that the thresholds for out of home care have been becoming higher and higher. Cuts have also affected the level of support available to families in the community, so when children are admitted to foster care, they are likely to have suffered greater harm over a longer period. This can often mean that their needs are complex and their behaviours more difficult for foster families to cope with.
It is not evident that contracting out fostering services and, in particular, the entry of private sector bodies to the fostering landscape, has added value either in quality or quantity. Rather it has led to competition for ever scarcer foster care recruits. There are also major issues in relation to the funding of foster care that must be addressed if a functional and effective service, delivering the kind of caring and sustained relationships that result in good outcomes for children, is to be achieved.
There are seven major issues which the Scottish Government and local authorities need to address.
1. Funding
A thorough review of arrangements for funding is essential if the decline in foster carer numbers is to be arrested. The remit of the review must encompass ensuring that fees paid provide an adequate level of recompense to all carers, reflecting the complexity of the task, and that allowances meet the real cost of providing for children in foster care. Children in foster care should be able experience a quality of life which is consistent with good parenting, supports their formal and informal learning and encourages functional social relationships. The review should examine how consistency across all providers can be achieved at national level. Consideration should be given to the ‘contractor’ arrangement and the scope for the inclusion of an employed and salaried service within the fostering repertoire, where carers have employment and pension rights. A continued ‘contractor’ model alongside ‘employee’ status might suit some carers. National consistency in conditions, fees and payments, however, would be required to reduce competition for carer services and assure a more stable and reliable service for children.
Importantly, improved terms and conditions could be tied to mandatory training and a clear understanding that children are not ‘moved on’ other than in exceptional circumstances.
Providing secure employment could also help address the issue of availability. Having carers who do not require to operate at 100% occupancy in order to have a reliable income would make urgent placements easier to access, would mean sibling groups are less likely to be separated, would make placements distant from children’s social connections less probable and would reduce incidence of carers being required to take higher numbers of children, or a wider age range, than they are actually approved for (Care Inspectorate, 2024 Fig 1.21). If they were employees, local authorities could redeploy foster carers when they did not have children placed with them to work with other children at risk of care.
This review should also include the processes surrounding Continuing Care, when children age out of foster care including the requirement to change registration status. There should also be recognition that there is substantial variation in the support needs, financial and otherwise, of young adults who have been looked after in foster care and a realistic reflection of this is needed.
Underpinning all of these must be a thorough review of local authority funding for fostering and the allocation of the uplift required to enable them to support an adequately resourced foster care service.
2. Housing
Every local authority area should audit the capacity of housing occupied by foster carers compared to the demand for foster carer placements and continuing care. Any shortfall can then be readily identified. Local authorities should consult with foster carers about how the current shortfall might be addressed. This would enable councils to keep sibling groups together and to continue fostering while offering continuing care. This could involve enlarging foster carers’ existing housing or enabling them to move to larger accommodation. Local authority housing and planning services should be actively involved in supporting such moves.
3. The market in fostering
The marketisation of a service that should be founded on philanthropic principles has generated major concerns. The IFA sector is now a mixture of charities and providers who are primarily motivated by money and appear to be removing money from the system. That money comes from public funds and could otherwise be used by local authorities to reinvest in the fostering service and to pay foster carers more.
In order to prevent this there should be unequivocal, legally enforceable prohibition of financial gain being made from foster care. Only local authorities and registered charities should be allowed to operate as providers.
4. High quality care
The consultation document articulates repeatedly an aspiration to deliver “high quality” in foster care. According to the document, this standard is to be attained by learning, development and support, financial remuneration, improving status through a national charter and a national register and improving the processes by which foster carers can raise concerns and have allegations against them dealt with. These are important elements that require to be addressed if the service is to evolve and improve.
Training is essential to the existence of a foster care service that can meet the increasingly complex needs of the children who use it and their families. However, there needs to be nationally consistent curricula for both pre-approval learning and continuing professional development. The logistical complications of participating in learning opportunities while at the same time providing full-time care must be addressed and learning delivered in a range of flexible and accessible ways. Incentives to undertake specialised training in order to meet an increasingly wide and complex range of child need, including, for example, unaccompanied child asylum seekers, should be routinely made available.
It is not entirely clear what value a national register will add. It may offer a wider range of options for children whose needs are so complex and specialised that it is unlikely that an appropriate resource could be identified locally but, for other children, local placement should be actively encouraged.
It would be useful to review how allegations against carers are dealt with, including in relation to minimising disruption to children. It should also be noted that removal of children, especially if an investigation is prolonged, will seriously and adversely affect the carers’ household income. Ensuring that carers feel confident and supported in raising concerns about the practice of professionals would also be helpful.
5. A flexible service
There is a risk that flexibility in this context can ultimately mean carrying out more tasks with fewer resources. Many foster carers do have skills and qualifications that are not directly deployed in their fostering role. Some may well be interested in undertaking other tasks.
It is critically important, however, that the complexity and diversity of the scope of interventions needed to support families whose children are at risk of being admitted to care is acknowledged. Engaging, and forming constructive relationships with birth families, whether the aim is for reunification or permanent separation, is challenging and time-consuming and requires competence in careful negotiation. Moving into a family’s home for a brief period at a time of crisis can be an invaluable short-term support measure but again the complexity inherent in providing such a service should not be underestimated. Family time fulfils a variety of functions. It is not just about organising a meeting. It is a means of conducting detailed observation of relationships, often crucial in making long-term decisions about children’s futures. Experienced carers supporting new carers is valuable and there are existing, evaluated models of practice that can be drawn on.
What is critical, however, is to acknowledge that these tasks are currently generally undertaken by qualified, salaried staff. Of course, professional development opportunities should exist for carers. They should not, however, be provided instead of or at the expense of qualified social work staff, nor without a clear framework for recompense and skill accreditation for carers carrying out such work.
6. The role of local government
The Scottish Government proposes to create a ‘Foster Scotland’ brand to attract more people to volunteer to become foster carers. While additional marketing may be helpful, it is essential that the local context is emphasised. Children’s connections to the families, friends, schools and communities should be nurtured rather than disrupted. It is also critical to recognise the attrition rate between those who express interest and those who eventually are trained and approved as carers. A high-profile campaign may generate many enquiries, which then have to be followed up by often hard-pressed social workers in local authorities. If only a small number of additional foster care resources are eventually thereby achieved, as happens at present, it is hard to see this as a priority for funding. What is more important is raising the profile of fostering in local communities. In most cases knowing a foster carer personally has been more of an incentive to volunteer than any publicity.
Local government, therefore, has a pivotal role to play in the provision of an effective foster care service and it is important that control remains at local level. Planning and strategy for foster care can be carried out most effectively by those who know and understand local need. External commissioning should be kept to a minimum, but where it is needed local authorities can ensure that it is transparent and contracted only to agencies that operate within a defined ethical framework. The obligations of local authorities towards their foster carers are set out in clear agreements, in place for many decades in most authorities, and the additional benefits of a national charter are not immediately obvious. Local services are close to the communities they serve and the carers’ voices can be much more integrated into service planning. To facilitate this and empower the workforce, the right of foster carers to be represented must be accepted, and supported through the creation of appropriate structures for dialogue, shared planning and collective bargaining.
The largest employer of the workforce supporting carers is local government. The quality and volume of support and advice given to carers depends on having a wellqualified, well-supervised and sufficientlyresourced workforce, with caseloads that can accommodate frequent and regular contact with carers and capacity to respond speedily when carers face difficult situations.
In the end of the day, most recruitment, training and ongoing support of carers will be undertaken by public social services. It is vital that their role is acknowledged and that they are given enough resources to give foster carers, and the children they look after, the service they deserve.
7. The workforce
There should be a thorough and ongoing analysis in each local authority area of the types and numbers of foster carers required to meet needs within local communities and to prevent the requirement for out of authority services. Additional staffing requirements in order to support such service development should also be analysed. There should be an audit of services, in each local authority area, that can assist foster carers and the social workers who support them in providing the best possible care, including therapeutic and mental health services. If social work staff are to be able to work therapeutically with children and their families, they must have the dedicated time to do this as well as an appropriate level of training and support.
As a first step, there should be a thorough analysis of the staffing needed to deliver current social work services effectively, including foster care, in local authority areas. Staffing should be at a level which will enable social work staff to deliver relationship-based practice in line with social work values. This will require caseloads to be set at manageable levels. Administrative support that reduces bureaucratic demands on social workers, thus allowing them to concentrate on the job they are trained to do, should also be part of this workload analysis. Core funding for social work in each local authority area must be increased. Short term funding for projects may be innovative in places but does nothing to deal with the key problem of chronic underinvestment and, by drawing experienced staff away from frontline Children & Families and Family Placement teams, can often make things worse.
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Common Weal Care Reform Group has already contributed extensively to constructive dialogue on children’s welfare. Good foster care is a vital element in achieving positive and equitable life chances for children who have to live apart from their families. Tackling the real and immediate problems faced by foster care is crucial if the welfare of our most vulnerable children is not to be compromised.
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The Future of Foster Care (Scottish Government, 2024). https://www.gov.scot/publications/future-foster-care-consultation/documents/
Independent Care Review (Scottish Government, 2020) https://www.carereview.scot/
Empty Promise (Macleod, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2021 https://commonweal.scot/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Empty-Promise.pdf
Over Promised, Under Cared (Macleod & Smith, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2024) https://commonweal.scot/over-promised-under-cared/
What is Care? (Smith, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2021) https://commonweal.scot/policies/what-is-care/
Poverty, inequality, child abuse and neglect: Changing the conversation across the UK in child protection?
(Featherstone, Bywaters, Daniel et al, University of Huddersfield, 2017)
Child Care or Caring About Children (Macleod, Common Weal Care Reform Group, 2021) https://commonweal.scot/policies/child-care-or-caring-about-children/
Permanently Progressing? Building secure futures for children (Whincup, Cusworth, Grant, Jacobs, Hooper, Critchley, Hennessy and Matthews, University of Stirling, 2019)
Treatment Foster Care Service Review (Millar & Burns, Glasgow City Integrated Joint Board, 2017) https://glasgowcity.hscp.scot/sites/default/files/publications/ITEM%20No%2009%20%20Treatment%20 Foster%20Care%20Service%20Review%20and%20Employment%20Tribunal%20Judgement.pdf
Alternatives to secure care and custody: guidance, Appendix 2 Intensive Specialist Fostering (Scottish Government, 2011)
Fostering and adoption statistics 2019/20 to 2023/24 A statistical bulletin (Care Inspectorate, September 2024) https://www.careinspectorate.com/images/documents/7740/Fostering%20and%20Adoption%202023-24.pdf
The demographic characteristics of foster carers in the UK: Motivations, barriers and messages for recruitment and retention (Institute of Education, University of London, 2012)
The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations (Scottish Government, 2009) https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ssi/2009/210/contents
Keeping the Promise (UNISON Scotland 2021) https://unison-scotland.org/wp-content/uploads/Keep-the-Promise-UNISON-Nov-21.pdf
What needs to change to support social work in Scotland? (Social Work Scotland
https://socialworkscotland.org/reports/what-needs-to-change-to-support-social-work-in-scotland/
Setting the Bar (Social Work Scotland, 2022) https://socialworkscotland.org/reports/settingthebar/
Moving Forward in Kinship and Foster Care (Scottish Government, 2009).
National Foster Care Review 2013 https://hub.careinspectorate.com/media/1277/national-foster-care-review-final-report.pdf
Getting it Right for Every Child in Kinship and Foster Care (Fostering Network, 2007)
Carer survey (Foster Talk, 2024) https://fostertalk.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/FT-Allegation-Survey-Report-July-2024-07-17.pdf
Children’s Social Work Statistics 2022-23 – Looked After Children
(https://www.gov.scot/publications/childrens-social-work-statistics-2022-23-looked-after-children/)
State of Scotland’s Foster Care Kate Lawson and Robert Cann, The Fostering Network, 2019
https://www.thefosteringnetwork.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-02/State%20of%20the%20Nation%27s%20 Foster%20Care%20Scotland%202019%20Final.pdf
National Foster Care Review, Scottish Government Looked After Children Strategic Implementation Group 2013 https://hub.careinspectorate.com/media/1277/national-foster-care-review-final-report.pdf
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In preparing this report we have not had the time or resources to undertake a comprehensive financial analysis of private sector foster care providers in Scotland. The examples below show that is needed and provide evidence for what we have said about private providers in the main body of the report.
The companies to whom these IFAs have lent large sums of money interest free have exempted themselves from ever having to repay this by ensuring the loans are unsecured. This means the IFA has no claims on these assets and can do nothing if they default on the loans.
Foster Care Associates Scotland
Foster Care Associates Scotland was registered as a fostering service in December 2005 and was recorded by the Care Inspectorate as the trading name of Core Assets Scotland Ltd. A condition of registration is that “Core Assets Scotland Limited must remain a voluntary, not for profit, organisation; any financial surplus made as a result of providing this registered fostering service must be reinvested in the service.” That information is now very out of date because Core Assets Scotland Ltd changed its name to Foster Care Associates Scotland Ltd (FCAS Ltd) in 2021. In order formally to meet the requirements of the law in Scotland FCAS is a company with no shares and cannot pay dividends to shareholders.
Companies House shows that FCAS Ltd is owned by Foster Care Associates Ltd, a company whose registered office is in Bromsgrove, England. The “intermediate parent” of FCA Ltd is the Nutrius UK BIDCO group, which operates a range of profit-making children’s services, and it parent the Nutrius UK TOPCO group. The accounts state the ultimate owners are CapVest Partners III LP (Liability Partnership).
The latest unaudited financial statements for FCAS Ltd the year to December 2023 report profits of £294,000 (2022 £1,222,000) and that the profit and loss account balance stands
at £7.71 million. While various ‘improvement’ initiatives are mentioned in the Directors’ annual report, which might require investment, none are costed and as a result it is unclear how much of the profits are being reinvested in the service. The financial statements also show, however, that FCAS Ltd owes £8.32 million to its parent company, an increase of over £1.6 million on the previous year and has loaned its parent company £16.29 million interest free, £1.45 million up from the previous year.
The two Directors of FCAS Ltd are also the two Directors of Nutrius Central Services Ltd and the accounts state they are remunerated through that company which appears to charge fees to FCAS Ltd for services – how much is withheld from the financial statements through the group taking advantage of exemptions in the Companies Act. According to Nutrius Central Services Ltd the two Directors were paid a total of £635,000 for their services.
Fosterplus (Foster Care) Ltd
Fosterplus, was registered by the Care Inspectorate in 2005 as a not-for-profit service, and is another fostering service in Scotland which is part of the Nutrius Uk BidCo Group. It has the same two directors as FCAS who are also paid by Nutrius Central Services.
Its latest accounts to December 2023 show it made gross profit of £2.738 million on turnover of £6.714 million but this reduced to £288,000 after administrative expenses. Its balance sheet shows it that it has provided £8.073m in interest free loans to parent undertakings, but had in the financial year paid back almost £2.5 million in monies it had been lent by the group.
The National Fostering Agency Scotland Ltd
This service was registered with the Care Inspectorate in February 2006, again with the requirement it be not for profit. Its immediate parent company is NFAG Ltd, based in Bolton whose “intermediate parent” is SSCP Spring TopCo Ltd which is in turn owned by 83% by
SSCP Spring Holdings Ltd based in Luxembourg.
The ultimate owner is reported to be Stirling Square Capital Partners Jersey AIFM Ltd.
According to its latest accounts to August 2023, NFAS Ltd owed £15.65 million to group undertakings and lent them £17.11 million interest free. Gross profit on turnover of £8.32 million was reported to be £3.76 million but was reduced to £292,000 after £3.47 million was spent in “administrative expenses”. Again, like FCAS the company uses exemptions in company law not to declare internal group transactions.
Both these cases give an indication of the amount of money which is being transferred out of IFAs in Scotland to profit making parent companies.
