Knowsley Council’s Children’s Scrutiny Committee last week received an update on the work being undertaken to meet sufficiency requirements for cared for children. This includes the expansion of internal residential care provision and the strengthening of in-house foster care capacity.
Nationally, demand for suitable foster care placements continues to rise at pace. The number of children in care has reached its highest level in recent years, while the mainstream fostering workforce has reduced by 12% since 2019. In addition, reliance on residential care has grown (nationally there’s been a 24% increase in children placed in residential settings) and this continues to place substantial financial pressure on local authorities. The number of children in the care with Knowsley Council has increased significantly since November 2024, rising from 317 to 388, which presents additional sufficiency challenges.
Knowsley Council currently has 103 approved in-house fostering households (comprising 54 mainstream foster carers and 49 kinship foster carers) and the council is committed to enabling children to remain within their wider families through a kinship arrangement wherever it is safe and appropriate to do so through kinship fostering. Where this isn’t possible, the council’s priority is to ensure children can remain within the borough and maintain connections to their families, schools, and local communities wherever possible.
The national reforms emphasise the need to stabilise and sustain the fostering workforce. Knowsley is part of the regional collaborative, Foster4 which is the designated recruitment hub for nine Cheshire and Merseyside local authorities. Whilst Knowsley benefits from the scale of a regional marketing campaign and the hub offer, the council has invested in a dedicated social worker and a support worker to focus specifically on fostering recruitment and engagement.
With the support of services across the council working together, an awareness-raising campaign has been launched to promote fostering opportunities. This has helped to recruit 5 new foster carers and 11 fostering placements over the last 10 months. In addition, the council has introduced a specialist foster carer role for children and young people with more complex or intensive needs – a role that can earn up to £1,000 per week.
A recent view by Fosterlink found a number of strengths relating to Knowsley’s foster carer recruitment including the use of local imagery and case studies, a generous referral scheme and good practice identified in the assessment team. Recommendations were also shared including strengthening data quality and performance reporting, better use of existing carer data to inform recruitment planning and enhancing training and support for foster carers. These recommendations are being progressed.
The Committee also received an update on registered residential care homes in Knowsley. In the borough, there are 23 providers operating 33 Children’s residential homes, providing 83 places. The council currently operates four children’s homes – all judged to be Good with Outstanding features by Ofsted – that form a key component of the borough’s sufficiency strategy, ensuring the provision of high-quality residential care that supports positive outcomes for children by ensuring their needs are met when they cannot live with their family or require short term support.
In addition, the Oasis Short Breaks Service supports young people to remain safely within their families and to reduce the need for local authority care and provides short break support for young people aged 11–18 years. Feedback confirms that Oasis is effective in preventing young people entering care and is contributing to improved outcomes for families. An expansion of the service to younger children and increasing the number of available short breaks is being explored.
The council is responding proactively to a challenging national sufficiency landscape by strengthening in-house fostering and residential provision, prioritising kinship care and embedding regional collaboration through Foster4.