The Islington Plan for Looked After Children and ... - Islington Council

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Priority 7: To make the best use of the Council’s resources whilst achieving value for money 5.7.1 The current position a. For 2011/12 the net budget for Children’s Social Care services in Islington is £36,495,630. There are three main areas of spend with the social care budget: Services to support children in need: these are all the costs associated with keeping children safe (child protection) and providing family support in the community to children in need. The main expenditure is on staffing and direct support services with a budget of £11.9m (33% of the overall CSC budget) for 2011/12. Services for looked after children and care leavers: within these budget areas the main areas of spend are staffing (£5.55 m and £1.23m respectively for 2011/12) which represents 19% of the overall budget, and placement costs which are detailed below. The placements budget is £15m split into two main areas, in-house and external. The in-house budget allocations total £5,935,650 and the external component of the budget totals £9,111,424. The following table details the areas of spend: Current Budget 11/12 % of overall CSC Budget £ % In House Adoption 1,324,855 4% Residence Order 760,483 2% Special Guardianship Order 665,751 2% Fostering 3,184,561 9% 5,935,649 16% External JAP Funded 1,910,576 5% Looked After Children (non JAP) 5,371,885 15% Disabled Children 835,279 2% Care Leavers 393,702 1% Southwark Judgement 600,000 2% 9,111,442 25% 15,047,091 41% 40
. Islington has made significant progress in reducing its unit cost for children looked after placed in foster or residential care. The unit cost includes direct staffing and overheads. This has been achieved through preferred provider arrangements with independent agencies, more efficient payment processes to suppliers and clearer and more focused procurement of services. c. Increased efficiency has been delivered in the following areas: Intensive support to children and young people on the edge of care through the Adolescent Multi Agency Support Service (AMASS) has reduced the numbers of eleven to fourteen year olds coming into care. Stronger management oversight in relation to decision making in relation to children becoming looked after and the placement and support package agreed. Good partnership working with preferred providers to deliver effective packages of care without always incurring unnecessary additional costs for ‘extras’. More efficient processing of payments and monitoring of placement expenditure through the use of tailored software. Concentrated attention on areas of high spend including family assessments and value for money on external contracts. 5.7.2 Challenges a. Despite tighter controls, expenditure on placements continues to be challenging to manage with the budget. b. Although the trend in terms of the number of children becoming looked after has begun to reduce and more recently stabilise, the needs of the children who do come into care are high and they often require specialist packages of care and support. c. The statutory requirement to support children after their eighteenth birthday will be a pressure on the Council’s resources. d. Internal business processes could be strengthened further across services and support functions. e. The current preferred fostering providers’ arrangement is at an end and although anecdotally, it appears that the contract has delivered some financial savings in terms of ‘extras’, it has failed to deliver placements for the majority of children requiring them (only a quarter of the children looked after by carers employed by external agencies were through preferred providers as at March 2010). f. Neither preferred fostering providers nor other external agency providers have delivered a significant number of local placements (i.e. within eight miles) to assist Islington in meeting our responsibilities under the sufficiency duty. 41
Page 1 and 2: The Islington Plan for Looked After
Page 3 and 4: Foreword The In Care Council As Cha
Page 5 and 6: 1. Introduction This is a multi age
Page 7 and 8: Being Healthy 98.2 % of children l
Page 9 and 10: 3. Islington’s Children Looked Af
Page 11 and 12: The total number of children looked
Page 13 and 14: 5. Our Priorities Priority 1: To in
Page 15 and 16: d. The promotion of evidence-based
Page 17 and 18: Priority 2: To ensure children look
Page 19 and 20: Children). Run by an independent ch
Page 21 and 22: Priority 3: To improve the health,
Page 23 and 24: experiences. A survey demonstrated
Page 25 and 26: Priority 4: To improve educational
Page 27 and 28: i. The number of children in year 1
Page 29 and 30: with SEN. The database enables the
Page 31 and 32: i. Islington has for some years pro
Page 33 and 34: e. Young people require encourageme
Page 35 and 36: e. To address the needs of care lea
Page 37 and 38: g. Partners are engaged in the deli
Page 39: foster carers and ensure that there
Page 43 and 44: 6. Monitoring and Quality Assurance
Page 45: Appendix One: Pledges to Islington

The Islington Plan for Looked After Children and ... - Islington Council

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