Independent fostering providers: Predators or pioneers, partners or procured?

The development of foster care as the placement of choice for children in care in Britain has been encouraged both in policy and practice. This has been accompanied by the severe reduction in residential care facilities for children and young people and the crisis in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of local authority approved and registered foster carers. The result has been a steady growth in the number of independent fostering providers (IFPs) and the increasing proportion of looked after children placed with their agencies' foster carers. In the past 20 years or so, the independent sector has become a major provider of placements and related children's services and this has presented local authorities with considerable cost. During this time, collaboration between local authority commissioners and independent fostering providers has gone through many different phases. By examining a series of linked studies between 1997 and 2010, Clive Sellick explores how the experiences and views of social workers, managers and foster carers have influenced the identities of the IFPs, the working relationships and organisational arrangements which have developed between staff and carers of both sectors and the impact of related policy throughout the New Labour era (1997–2010) in the UK.