Looked After Children Placements and Resource Sufficiency Strategy

2015 to 2018

Martin Trim, Lynne Adams and Vince Clark

Children and Young People's Services

London Borough of Hillingdon

Table of Content

Section
  1. Introduction and Background Information
  2. Introduction
  3. London Borough of Hillingdon Profile
  4. Mechanisms for commissioning placements in Hillingdon
  5. The West London Alliance

  1. Looked After Children in Hillingdon
  2. Looked After Children Profile

  1. Principles and Vision of the Strategy
  2. Vision for Placements in Hillingdon
  3. Objectives
  4. Consultation and Service User Feedback

  1. Fostering
  2. Fostering Placement Profile
  3. Hillingdon’s Fostering Service
  4. Historic External Spend/Placements
  5. Location of External Placements
  6. West London IFA Framework
  7. West London Care Place
  8. Staying Put Placements

  1. Residential Children's Homes
  2. Residential Children’s Homes Placement Profile
  3. Hillingdon's Residential Children's Homes
  4. Historic External Spend/Placements
  5. Location of External Placements
  6. Independent Residential Home Providers

  1. Semi-Independent Provision For Care Leavers
  2. Semi Independent Placement Profile
  3. Hillingdon’s Semi Independent Provision
  4. Hillingdon’s Shared Housing Provision
  5. Historic External Spend/Placements
  6. Location of External Placements
  7. Alternative Semi Independent Provision

  1. Placements and Resource Sufficiency Strategy Priorities and Improvement Plan

  1. Introduction and Background Information

1.1 Introduction

This Sufficiency Strategy document sets out how the London Borough of Hillingdon (LBH) intends to meet its Sufficiency Duty as laid down in Section 22G of the Children Act 1989. In preparing this document consideration has been given to the Statutory Guidance Securing Sufficient Accommodation for Looked After Children (2009).

The document outlines steps to secure, sufficient accommodation within the London Borough of Hillingdon which meets the needs of children that the local authority are looking after, and whose circumstances are such that it would be consistent with their welfare for them to be provided with accommodation that is in the local authority’s area (‘the sufficiency duty’).

To achieve this, the Strategy will be supported by a range of action plans that will be refreshed annually. The Strategy should be read in conjunction with the following council plans and policies;

  • Children's Social Care Services Improvement Plan 2014-16
  • Council’s Permanency Policy
  • Fostering Allowance Policy

This strategy enhances the work already completed as part of the 2011- 2014 Placement Strategy, which ensures that recent improvements are sustained and built upon.

1.2London Borough of Hillingdon Profile

Hillingdon is a borough of contrasts. The north of the borough is semi-rural with a large proportion protected by green belt regulation, and Ruislip is the major centre of population. The south of Hillingdon is more densely populated, urban in character and contains the administrative centre of Uxbridge and towns of Hayes and West Drayton.

Heathrow airport is situated in the south of the borough, and is the largest employer offering a range of relatively well-paid skilled and unskilled manual positions. As well as these many positives, Heathrow provides many challenges as a major port of entry and the council in the responsible antidotes to deal with unaccompanied asylum seeking children and families.

The Council shares an almost co-terminus boundary with Hillingdon Clinical Commissioning Group (known as NHS Hillingdon) which isresponsible for the commissioning of healthcare services.

Population and Ethnicity

Hillingdon's Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) shows that the population of the borough in 2015 is estimated to be 296,000. Projections indicate that Hillingdon's population will grow by approximately 4,500 people each year up to 2021. The 2015 population estimates show that 6.3% of the Hillingdon population is aged between 15 to19 years old (projected from the 2012 mid-year estimate).

Age / 2015 estimate / %
0-4 / 22,500 / 7.6%
5-9 / 20,100 / 6.8%
10-14 / 16,700 / 5.7%
15-19 / 18,700 / 6.3%
20-24 / 23,400 / 7.9%

Hillingdon like many other London Boroughs has a young population, with 34.3% of the population under 25, compared to the national figure of 30.6%.

The population is increasingly diverse, currently 40% from BAME groups (Black, Asian, and minority ethnic), with a key feature of Hillingdon's demography is the ethnic diversity is concentrated in the young age groups. As such the proportion of people from BAME communities is projected to increase to 50% by 2021.

Looked After Children (LAC)

At 31st March 2015 there were 336 Looked After Children in Hillingdon a decrease of 12% from 31st March 2014.The 336 children looked after by the Authority equates to 50 children per 10,000 children under 18 years of age in Hillingdon. At 31st March 2015 the number of LAC who were Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC) was 93.

National comparison

At 31st March 2014 there were 370 Looked After Children in Hillingdon. This has decreased from 420 children at 31st March 2010. The 370 children looked after by the Authority equates to 55 children per 10,000 children under 18 year of age in Hillingdon. For the same time period this is lower than the national rate which is 60 children per 10,000 but slightly higher than the rate for London which is 54 per 10,000. Nationally the trend since 2010 has increased from 57 to 60 children per 10,000 whereas in Hillingdon the trend shows a decrease from 67 in 2010 to 55 in 2014.

The number of UASC looked after by the Authority decreased to 95 at 31st March 2014 compared to 145 at 31st March 2010. This is a decrease of 34% compared to a decrease of 31% for London and a decrease of 43% nationally for the same time period.

The impact of accommodations for UASC is reflected in the age profile of Looked After Children in Hillingdon; causing a significant deviation to the national profile. At 31st March 2014 in Hillingdon 42% of Looked After Children were over 16 years of age compared to 21% nationally and 30% in London.

The Children's Social Care map below illustrates a snap shot of the work flow volumes in Children's Social Care.

Safeguarding children (including Child Protection)

In 2013/14 there were 2,947 referrals to Children's Services in Hillingdon which equates to 438 per 10,000 population of children under 18 years of age. This is significantly lower than the national rate of 573 and the London rate of 470. Of the 2,947 referrals in Hillingdon 543 (18.4%) were made within 12 months of a previous referral for that child. This compares to 23.4% nationally and 16.25% for London. In Hillingdon 3% of these referrals resulted in 'no further action' this is considerably lower than the national rate of 14% and the London rate of 8%.

During 2014/15 the service delivery model and management of Children in Need and Safeguarding has been significantly changed to make it more effective. This has included the introduction of a fully functioning MASH team and a Referral and Assessment Service to strengthen the 'front door'. This resulted in more consistent thresholds being used to determine access to Social Care Service.

Initial results for 2014/15 show that there have been 3,668 referrals in Hillingdon which equates to 543 per 10,000 an increase of 24% since 2013/14.

The rate of children who became the subject of a Child Protection Plan during 2013/14 per 10,000 population under 18 years of age in Hillingdon was 30.8 this compares to 52.1 for England and 43.2 for London. In 2014/15 the number of children who became the subject of a Child Protection Plan increased sharply to 56.2 per 10,000.

1.3Mechanisms for commissioning placements in Hillingdon

A Category Management approach is being used to commission services and ensure legally binding contracts are in place for all external service providers, that these external services are continually monitored to ensure they are providing a quality service, value for money, and the team are also responsible for ensuring a robust and efficient contract management system is in place.

The Category Management Team will ensure all services are procuredin accordance with Hillingdon's Procurement & Contract Standing Orders.In addition, ifthe estimated contract value is greater than the limit specified by OJEU, the formal provisions of The Public Contract Regulations 2015 will be applied.

The Access to Resources Team use these contracts to broker a range of placements for Looked After Children including; Foster Care, Children's Residential Homes and Semi Independent Living Accommodation. The team ensure that all individual child agreements are in place for each Looked after Child to ensure that the placements are meeting the desired outcomes.

The Assistant Director, Children's Social Care chairs a weekly Access to Resources Panel to ensure that any expensive package of care are appropriately gate kept and also to track and monitor placements being made outside of 20 miles from home.

As part of the Sufficiency Strategy, a Category Portfolio will be continually developed to deliver the requirements of Children's service and structured to:

  • Ensure assurance of supply (provider failure and service interruptions)
  • Deliver appropriate quality of service
  • Deliver flexible service solutions
  • Deliver value for money
  • Facilitate new and innovative solutions
  • Develop solutions with new local suppliers
  • Comply with relevant legislation

1.4The West London Alliance (WLA)

The London Borough of Hillingdon is 1 of 6 boroughs including Ealing, Harrow, Brent, Hammersmith & Fulham and Hounslow who form the West London Alliance (WLA). As part of the Children’s Services Efficiencies Programme the WLA boroughs are also working in partnership with RB Kensington and Chelsea, and the City of Westminster.

The West London Children’s Services Efficiencies Programme was launched in Spring 2011, and includes a commitment to develop a specific programme to deliver savings and efficiencies from spend on externally commissioned social care provision for children in care and care leavers.

Collectively, the West London boroughs spend in excess of £60m per year on Looked After Children, making them the largest collective purchasers of external Children’s Social Care placements in the country. All of the Local Authorities within the WLA are working collectively to develop this joint purchasing power to ensure the quality, value and local sufficiency of provision. Thethree main WLA work streams for the LAC category are Fostering (Section 4), Residential Children's Homes (Section 5) and Semi-independent (Section 6); please see relevant sections for more information.

  1. Looked After Children in Hillingdon

As part of aImprovement Plan the Children's Social Care Servicehas developed an improvement programme;with a greater focus on prevention and getting it right through early support, Children's Social Care Services will focus on offering accessible good quality support for those families that require specialist interventions.

Children and Young People can become 'Looked After' in two main ways;

  1. Voluntary arrangement with their parents or carer (if they have parental responsibility),
  2. Following an application to court for an Interim Care Order as part of legal proceedings.

The Council has a duty as Corporate Parent to all children that come into the care of the Council. This duty is discharged through service provision, delegated participation services and through the oversight of the Corporate Parenting Board.

The Council also has a set of duties to provide appropriate care and support to young people leaving care up to the age of 24 to 25 if in further education.

LBH is working in partnership with families and other key stakeholders to prevent children from coming into care. LBH is committed to provide substantial support to facilitate rehabilitation to family and kinship Networks. One example is the recent award of contract for an expandedFamily Group Conference Service which started in April 2015. The intention is for Family Group Conferences to support the families engaged with Children and Young People Services to find their own solutions to their problems in meeting the child's needs.

2.1 Looked After Children Profile

As at / 31/03/2013 / 31/03/2014 / 31/03/2015
Children in Care / No's / % / No's / % / No's / %
Number of Children in Care / 358 / 358 / 336
Gender
Female / 131 / 37% / 137 / 38% / 129 / 38%
Male / 227 / 63% / 220 / 61% / 203 / 60%
Other / 0 / 0% / 1 / 0% / 0 / 0%
Ethnicity
Asian / 74 / 21% / 55 / 15% / 68 / 20%
Black / 60 / 17% / 69 / 19% / 71 / 21%
Chinese/ Other Ethnic Group / 15 / 4% / 24 / 7% / 19 / 6%
Mixed / 39 / 11% / 29 / 8% / 28 / 8%
White / 170 / 47% / 181 / 51% / 147 / 44%
Info not available / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 3 / 1%
Placement type
Placed for Adoption / 11 / 3% / 7 / 2% / 0 / 0%
Fostering / 237 / 66% / 223 / 62% / 223 / 66%
Placed with Relative, Friends & Parents / 6 / 2% / 5 / 1% / 4 / 1%
Independent Living / 57 / 16% / 73 / 20% / 60 / 18%
Residential / 38 / 11% / 39 / 11% / 45 / 13%
Other / 9 / 3% / 11 / 3% / 4 / 1%
Placement Location
In Borough / 188 / 53% / 196 / 55% / 191 / 57%
Out Borough / 156 / 44% / 154 / 43% / 145 / 43%
Unknown placement locations / 14 / 4% / 8 / 2% / 6 / 2%
Legal Status
Section 46 / 1 / 0% / 4 / 1% / 0 / 0%
Section 44 / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0%
Section 20 / 193 / 54% / 197 / 55% / 198 / 59%
Section 38 / 14 / 4% / 32 / 9% / 22 / 7%
Section 31 / 107 / 30% / 93 / 26% / 92 / 27%
Section 23 / 5 / 1% / 7 / 2% / 3 / 1%
Placement Order / 36 / 10% / 24 / 7% / 21 / 6%
Without Legal Status / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0% / 0 / 0%
Other Legal Status / 2 / 1% / 1 / 0% / 0 / 0%

In March 2015 there were 336 LAC from a predominately White, Black or Asian background with 59% under the legal status Section 20.

A large proportion of Hillingdon's LAC are place outside Hillingdon but are kept where possible within 20 miles of their home.The table below shows numbers LAC in Hillingdon placed over 20 miles from home. There has been a steady decline in the proportion of the LAC population placed outside 20 miles from 18% March 2011 to 14% March 2015. It should be noted that Heathrow airport is used as the home destination for UASC.

In comparison with Boroughs in London and the rest of England; Hillingdon has a good track record of keeping LAC close to home.Hillingdon's percentage of placements outside 20 miles from home is predicted to decrease to 14% in 2015. The table below shows a comparison between Hillingdon, England and London from 2010 to 2014.

% of Children Looked After placed over 20 miles from home
2010 / 2011 / 2012 / 2013 / 2014
England / 16% / 16% / 16% / 16% / 17%
London / 18% / 18% / 18% / 18% / 18%
Hillingdon / 16% / 18% / 16% / 15% / 12%
  1. Principles and Vision of the Strategy

3.1.Vision for Placements in Hillingdon

The vision of this strategy is to help children who are looked after, or at risk of becoming looked after, by the London Borough of Hillingdon (LBH), achieve the best possible life outcomes and to ensure that the services provided to these children are structured in a way that best meets their needs.

Need to develop clarity regarding the following;

  • Increased in house fostering provision,
  • More timely premises of permanent outcomes,
  • Manage the external provider market.

It is driven by the following key principles:

  • Partnerships will be developed with children, young people and families to provide a range of support and placement options to meet need. We will also listen to our service users and take feedback from them to ensure that our services are delivered in a way that is most helpful and effective and serves residents needs.
  • Every effort will be made to ensure local placements are provided that enable Looked After Children, (when it is in their best interests) - to remain in their local communities, maintain their networks, and minimise disruption in their lives, especially schooling.
  • Partnership and Community support that enables children to stay within their immediate family will be promoted.
  • Services to promote permanency for children and young people within their families or alternative substitute care will be promoted.
  • Meaningful support to facilitate rehabilitation to family and kinship networks when in the best interests of the child will be provided.
  • Where children cannot be supported within their immediate family, “Connected Person” arrangements will be explored as the preferred alternative arrangement.
  • Foster care arrangements will only be put in place where family and “Connected Person” arrangements are not possible.
  • Residential care arrangements will be put in place where foster care arrangements are not possible and will provide support to children and young people enabling rehabilitation to family and connected networks where possible.
  • Suitable accommodation will be provided to care leavers which will include 'staying put' where that is in their best interests.

3.2. Objectives

In support of these principles LBH aims to:

  • Ensure that only those children who need to be looked after are accommodated within the care system,
  • Reduce the amount of time children spend in care, by achieving timely outcomes.
  • Increase placement stability,
  • Promote and develop in-house fostering services,
  • Comply with the Statutory Guidance – Securing Sufficient Accommodation for Looked After Children across the range of needs identified in the Strategy,
  • Ensure efficient and effective use of Independent Fostering Agencies (IFAs) and residential care,
  • Provide Looked After Children with access to available positive activities such as arts, sport and culture, in order to promote the child's sense of well-being,
  • Ensure services demonstrate they provide “value for money” to all Hillingdon’s residents.

3.3.Consultation and Service User Feedback

New Statutory Guidance on Promoting the Health and Well-being of Looked After Children was issued on 17 March 2015.

Looked After Children should be able to participate in decisions about their care. Arrangements should be in place to promote a culture:

  • Where Looked After Children are listened to
  • That takes account of their views according to their age and understanding, in identifying and meeting their physical, emotional and mental health needs
  • That helps others, including carers and schools, to understand the importance of listening to and taking account of the child’s wishes and feelings about how to be healthy.

All Looked After Children are consulted about their placement and experiences of being in care, including their health and education, throughout their time in care, Social workers meet with them regularly to seek their views, carers (foster carers or residential staff) are required to discuss and involve children in decision making on a day to day basis; and there is a more formal consultation process that takes place in advance of their LAC Reviews, which includes the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) who chairs the Review meeting arranging a time to see the child on their own in preparation for their review.

There are currently three groups that make up the Children in Care Council (CICC) in Hillingdon, each of these groups meet a minimum of once a month with the Participation Worker and the Children’s Rights Officer facilitating the groups with the support of Care Leavers. These groups are an opportunity for young people to come together with other Looked After Children; be consulted about improving children services and getting involved in projects to effect change and improve services given to them.

  • Talkers: is for 7 to 11 year olds
  • Step Up: aged 12-15 years
  • Stepping Out: 16 plus and care leavers. This is a newly formed break away group as a decision was made to split the Step Up Group into younger and older as it was difficult for the older Talkers to move up to Step Up with so many older young people and care leavers. This has enabled this group to focus more on issues relating to leaving care, training and service developments.

Children and young people from the older groups are trained to deliver training to other children and staff in Hillingdon and get involved in staff recruitment. They also have representation and take an active part in the Corporate Parenting Board meetings with Members and Senior Officers.