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1.1 Any child cared for away from their home and their parents should expect to be protected from harm. However, the arrangements to safeguard children placed by their parents in privately arranged foster care are not always applied effectively, even in situations where their natural parents do not maintain contact with them.

1.2 A child or young person under 16 (or if disabled under 18) is defined as privately fostered when he or she is cared for more than 28 days by an adult who is not a relative and the arrangement has been made between the carer and the parent. Privately fostered children are protected by the Children Act 1989 (part IX) and the associated regulations.

1.3 Voluntary child care organisations estimate that up to 10,000 children are in privately arranged placements. This estimate is based on work that is now ten years old. However, the number of placements effectively notified to local councils is significantly lower. SSI recently collected information from ten councils and found that the highest number of children notified was three in a small unitary authority. The real scale of private foster care, therefore, remains unknown.

1.4 In June, 2000 the Chief Inspector of Social Services wrote to local councils reminding them of their role in relation to private fostering and asking them to review their services to ensure that carers were complying with legislation and guidance. SSI undertook an inspection of services to privately fostered children between December 2000 and March 2001. The Department of Health also ran a national awareness campaign in 2001 to encourage key council and health staff, carers and parents to notify their 'host' councils of children being cared for under the private fostering regulations

1.5 It was originally planned to undertake this inspection in eight councils. However, the number of children notified to councils as privately fostered meant that only five authorities were able to provide a significant sample of children and carers. To add to our knowledge, we supplemented our inspections by asking a further five councils to provide us with some basic information.

Raising public awareness

1.6 Some councils had made considerable efforts to raise public awareness about private fostering. We saw examples of some very good publicity material, sometimes produced in conjunction with neighbouring councils and in appropriate formats and languages. However, other councils did not provide accessible information. Nor did the existence of good publicity material have a significant impact on the number of carers who came forward.

1.7 There was little knowledge of the need for carers to notify social services of private arrangements. Prior to contacting social services, most private foster carers had little awareness or understanding of the private fostering regulations and the duties and responsibilities of social services. There was also little incentive to contact social services. Those who had cared for a child or young person for significant periods reported little benefit.

1.8 Birth parents were also unaware of the responsibility to register private arrangements with the local council and publicity campaigns did not appear to have had much impact on them. They may also be reluctant to make their presence known to the local council or fear the bureaucracy involved.1.9 Professionals who came into contact with privately fostered children such as teachers and health professionals, either did not know, or did not see it as their responsibility, to let social services know about such arrangements.

Placement arrangements

1.10 The situations in which children were privately fostered were very varied, but tended to cluster around the following:

1.11 The contribution of birth parents to children's placements varied. Some parents provided financial support, additional clothing and equipment, and had regular contact. In other instances, private foster carers only had access to the basic child benefit allowance and had had no contact with birth parents for a significant number of years.

1.12 In some circumstances, particularly where children had been in placement for years without contact with their birth parents, the private carers had obtained, or were in the process of applying for, residence orders to secure the child's placement with them.

Registration and assessment of carers

1.13 All the councils inspected had policies and procedures for carers' assessments, statutory checks and references, visits and reviews. Those councils who placed responsibility for privately fostered children within their fostering units had more consistent approaches to approval, care and decision making. However, this work was generally given low priority and undertaken inconsistently.

1.14 Arrangements between carers and natural parents were generally informal and in some cases there was no contact. This left both children and carers in a vulnerable position with the potential for disagreements or premature termination of the placement. Social workers were generally not proactive in contacting birth parents and encouraging contact and written agreements.

Meeting children's needs

1.15 Although we saw some examples of good quality assessments, in the main assessments lacked depth and real focus on the needs of the child. Frequent changes of social worker meant that some children were unable to build up a long-term relationship. Some councils planned to improve the quality of initial assessments using the new Framework for Assessment. Some councils were prepared to use Section 17 funding to support children in placements or to review the status of the placement in order to offer financial support.Others were unwilling to support carers who were struggling financially.

1.16 All too often, local council social services only became involved when things had gone wrong. Either the child had not been visited for some time by the parents, the child had special needs (health or education), the child was not being financially supported by the parents or the child had been hurt.

Supporting children's racial and cultural needs

1.17 A number of placements were trans-racial and/or trans-cultural. Some carers had little direct knowledge of the child's religious or cultural needs, or access to appropriate advice in the local community. This meant that they were ill-equipped to deal with identity, race, religion and discrimination issues. This could seriously disadvantage Black children.

1.18 In a few councils, there were a small but significant number of West African children placed with private foster carers. They tended to be placed in areas with low minority ethnic populations. In many instances, the children had been placed for considerable periods with little parental contact. These arrangements had left children isolated from their culture and communities.Where such placements had been made by word of mouth, some parents had entrusted the care of their very young children to complete strangers, with little or no checks being made beforehand.

Victoria Climbié

1.19 The tragic death of Victoria Climbié has focused further attention on the welfare of children living away from their parents. At the time of this report, the Inquiry into Victoria's death is under way.

Conclusions

1.20 The exact number of privately fostered children remains uncertain. Arrangements to protect these children are often low priority for social services. This has helped to create a situation in which parents, carers and other professionals are either unaware of the need to contact social services about private fostering arrangements, or see little benefit in doing so. However, it is likely that most of these potentially vulnerable children are in contact with either the education or health services, and that, as part of a more proactive approach, social services could work collaboratively with other professionals to ensure that they are protected.

1.21 For some privately fostered children there is regular parental contact and written agreements that clarify roles and responsibilities. In such circumstances a council may only have a limited role to play. But for many children parental/family contact is infrequent or non-existent. In these circumstances the needs of the child and the suitability of the foster carers should be at the heart of assessment, planning, support and protection arrangements. Where these arrangements are unsatisfactory, privately fostered children have the same rights to support and protection as other children in need. However, some councils are not paying sufficient attention to their responsibilities to these children. It is essential that the welfare of these vulnerable children is not lost sight of in the press of other urgent business.

Reading the remainder of this report

1.22 This report is set out in a way to enable the reader to have an understanding about every aspect of the inspection:

Chapter 1 is a summary of the key themes which have emerged from the inspection;

Chapter 2 provides a list of the recommendations we have made;

Chapter 3 sets out the context in which social services is operating;

Chapter 4 and each subsequent chapter detail the evidence which led us to our conclusions and recommendations.

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• CI (2002)5: By private arrangement: SSI report of the inspection of the arrangements for supervising children in private foster care