Purpose

Reasons for the decision:

MKCC is a partner in the South East Regional Care Cooperative
Pathfinder funded by DfE. The Children’s Wellbeing and
Schools Bill 2024-25 aims to legislate RCCs, shifting from
voluntary collaboration to mandatory regional commissioning,
therefore this decision will enable the delivery of a forthcoming
statutory duty.

The functions of the RCC will also support the Council to meet its
existing ‘Sufficiency Duty’ under the Children Act
1989.

The decision relates to the payment of a grant to an external body
and is required by the Council’s Financial Regulations.

This is an invest to save proposal developed to deliver savings to
the Children’s Services External Placements budget.

Content

That a Year 1 contribution of £50,000 to
establish a South-East Regional Care Cooperative (RCC) be agreed to
increase the placement sufficiency for looked after children across
the region and mitigate the impact of the private market in seeking
placements for some of the City’s most vulnerable
children.

Alternative options considered

Alternatives
Considered

To do nothing

This is not a viable option. Membership of a Regional Care
Cooperative is driven by central government reforms and is soon
likely to be legislated.

Without the RCC, Local Authorities will continue to face rising
costs and insufficient placements, leading to poorer outcomes for
children and young people. Between 2015/16 and 2021/22, the amount
spent on children’s residential care increased by 66.2% in
real terms nationally. There is currently no centrally coordinated
data collection which describes the situation. Without this,
efforts to address the lack of sufficiency will not be fully
informed and cannot succeed. Working on our own individual
authorities have very limited ability to influence and change the
way the placement market operates, working with 15 other
authorities will give the scale and volume to make significant
changes.

The RCC offers a coordinated, data-driven approach to address these
challenges and ensure sustainable, high-quality care for the
region's children. The programme has the support of the Department
for Education and, as a pathfinder, the South East has benefited
from an enhanced delivery partner support to accelerate our
progress.