The children's social care market has been under much scrutiny of late with two recent reports shedding light on the state of the sector: the Independent Review of Children's Social Care and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) Children's Social Care Report.

The CMA report found a shortage of appropriate places in children's homes and with foster carers and highlighted that children are often being placed too far from their previous homes and families. It also highlighted high levels of debt being carried by some private providers of children's homes in England and Wales and found that large private sector providers of fostering services and children homes appear to be making higher profits in England and Wales than would be expected in a well-functioning market. The strain being placed on local authorities as a result was found to be limiting scope to fund other important children's activities and services.

One of the suggestions made by the CMA report was for the formation of collective bodies to support local authorities and help them leverage their role as purchasers. The Independent Review of Children's Social Care echoed this with a recommendation for the establishment of Regional Care Cooperatives.

At iESE we are all too aware that children's services face a lack of options and are often under pressure to accept what is offered by providers. We know this is a difficult market to operate in but remain confident the children's CareCubed licence can bring immediate quick wins and help support medium-to-longer-term strategic planning to start allowing local authorities to understand their market and identify ways to work more closely with those providers offering value for money and good outcomes.

There are two versions of the CareCubed children's module – a council version which gives unlimited user licences for council officers to work on the cohorts of cases, and the place-based licence which gives controlled access to care providers and health service colleagues to allow them to input information directly into CareCubed. This supports collaborative working, reduces local authority workload, and helps aid transparent negotiations due to standardised information being collected across providers. It means that councils can take a ‘snapshot' of the local market to get a better understanding of the different business models, operating profits and services offered.

If you would like to hear more information about CareCubed, please get in touch at carecubed@iese.org.uk

Dr Andrew Larner is chief executive of the Improvement & Efficiency Social Enterprise (iESE), which supports public sector transformation

This article is sponsored content for The MJ