Homes for Children

Sufficiency Strategy 2026-2029

Children and Young People’s Service

Foreword

To be added on behalf of El and Cllr Sanderson following Executive sign off

Executive Summary

North Yorkshire Council is committed to ensuring that every child in care and every young person leaving care has a safe, stable and loving home, with the right support to maintain relationships, education and community connections wherever this is safe and in their best interests.

At February 2026, there were 613 children in care in North Yorkshire, representing a 9% increase in one year and a 37% increase since January 2019. This growth, alongside increasing complexity of need, means the Council must continue to plan sufficiency in a focused, evidence-led and local way.

This strategy sets out how North Yorkshire will strengthen the local care offer over the next three years. It focuses on building on existing strengths, including in-house fostering, family-based care and No Wrong Door, while developing more specialist and local options where children and young people need them.

North Yorkshire’s geography means that sufficiency must be planned through a locality lens, taking account of distance, travel time, school continuity, family time and access to services rather than county boundaries alone.

The delivery priorities are to grow and diversify in-house fostering; improve placement matching, stability and support; develop more small, local and specialist residential homes; increase registered supported accommodation and independence pathways; expand short breaks and disability provision; build planned crisis and emergency capacity; use data and forecasting to drive sufficiency; and shape a stronger local and regional provider market.

In meeting its statutory duty under Section 22G of the Children Act 1989, North Yorkshire Council must secure, as far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation for children in care within North Yorkshire where this is consistent with their welfare. The strategy recognises that the main sufficiency gaps are not simply about overall numbers, rather they relate to the availability of the right types of provision in the right places, including specialist foster carers, small local residential homes, registered supported accommodation, specialist short breaks and planned crisis and emergency capacity.

Delivery will be phased over the life of the strategy and supported by clear governance, performance oversight and regular review. Progress will be monitored through sufficiency governance arrangements, with quarterly review of delivery, performance data and feedback from children, young people, families, carers, providers and practitioners. An annual refresh of the delivery plan will ensure the strategy remains live, evidence-led and responsive to changing and emerging need, market conditions, national policy and regional commissioning developments.

Success will mean more children living close to the people and places that matter to them, more children experiencing stable and well-matched care, stronger support for children with complex needs, fewer avoidable moves, reduced reliance on emergency or distant provision, and improved preparation for adulthood.

1. Strategic Context and Statutory Duty

This strategy sets out how North Yorkshire Council will meet its statutory duty under Section 22G of the Children Act 1989 to secure, as far as reasonably practicable, sufficient accommodation for children in care within North Yorkshire where this is consistent with their welfare. This legal duty sits at the heart of our wider corporate parenting responsibility and our ambition for children and young people.

For North Yorkshire, sufficiency is about more than the number of placements available. It is about ensuring that children have access to homes that are safe, nurturing, stable, well supported, and able to meet their individual needs. It is also about ensuring that children remain connected to the people and places that matter to them wherever this is possible and in their best interests.

Our ambition is that children should be supported to remain safely within their families, networks and communities wherever possible. Where children do need to come into care, we want family-based care to be the first and strongest option wherever it can meet their needs. This includes kinship care, connected care and in-house foster care. Where children need residential or specialist provision, we want more local options that provide high-quality care, strong relationships and access to education, health and community support.

North Yorkshire starts from a position of strength. The Council has a strong in-house fostering offer, established local provision such as No Wrong Door, and a clear commitment to keeping children close to home. These strengths provide the foundation for the next phase of improvement. The task now is to build additional capacity in a planned and targeted way, so that our provision continues to meet children’s changing needs.

The county’s geography means that sufficiency needs to be understood in a very local way. A child may be placed within North Yorkshire while still be a long distance from their home community, school or family network. For this reason, our planning must consider both county-wide sufficiency and locality-based access. The aim is to strengthen provision in the places where children need it most, while maintaining quality, safety and value for money.

This strategy aligns with wider national reform and local priorities, including early help, family help, permanence, SEND, inclusion, health partnerships, care leaver support and the development of regional approaches to commissioning and sufficiency. It recognises that early help and family support are essential to preventing unnecessary care entry, however, a strong and resilient care system is also needed for children who do require care.

By 2030, our ambition is for North Yorkshire to have a more resilient and balanced care system: one that enables more children to live close to home, supports more children in family-based care, provides strong local residential and specialist options, eliminates the use of unregistered provision, strengthens crisis and disability support, and improves stability, belonging and long-term outcomes.

2. Current Need and System Pressures

2.1 Need

At February 2026, there were 613 children in care in North Yorkshire. This represents a 9% increase in one year and a 37% increase since January 2019. This increase has taken place while the overall population of children aged 0–17 has remained broadly stable, which shows that the growth in care Need reflects wider pressures on children, families and the system rather than population growth alone.

This trend creates an important opportunity to review and strengthen our local care offer so that it remains responsive, sustainable and focused on children’s needs. Admissions continue to exceed discharges, and the number of children in care per 10,000 children aged 0–17 has increased between 2021 and 2025. This means we need to plan ahead with confidence, using data and forecasting to ensure that the right types of homes and support are available.

The reasons children come into care are varied and often complex. Families may experience pressures linked to poverty, housing instability, domestic abuse, parental mental health, substance misuse, school exclusion or absence, adolescent risk, exploitation and wider social pressures. In a large rural county, some of these pressures can be harder to identify early because families may be isolated and services may be further away.

Children entering care are also presenting increasingly more complex needs. More children require support linked to trauma, emotional wellbeing, neurodiversity, disability, risk outside the home, mental health and disrupted relationships. This means that sufficiency must be focused not only on the number of placements available, it must also address the skills, confidence and support surrounding carers and providers.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children are an important part of the sufficiency picture. Their needs include safe accommodation, cultural understanding, access to education, health support, legal advice, emotional wellbeing and preparation for adulthood. Planning for this cohort needs to be flexible enough to respond to changing national and local Need.

2.2 Placement Profile

North Yorkshire has a strong family-based care profile. Around 74% of children in care live in foster care, and most of this provision is delivered through the Council’s in-house fostering service. This is a significant strength. It means that many children are cared for in family settings, often closer to their local communities and with stronger oversight from the Council.

The Council also has minimal use of independent fostering agency placements, which demonstrates the strength of the in-house fostering model and provides a strong platform for further development. The next stage is to grow and diversify this fostering offer so that it can meet more specialist needs, including adolescents, brothers and sisters, children with disabilities, children with complex trauma and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.

Approximately 11% of children in care are living in residential provision. North Yorkshire has an established internal residential and edge-of-care model through No Wrong Door, which is widely recognised as a strength. The opportunity now is to build on this model and develop additional local residential options, including smaller homes and more specialist provision for children whose needs cannot be met in foster care or larger group settings.

Approximately 8% of children in care are placed with parents. These arrangements are an important part of the overall placement profile because they usually reflect situations where the child remains legally looked after while living within their family home or returning home as part of a planned reunification pathway. They require robust assessment, clear care planning, effective risk management and regular oversight to ensure that the arrangement remains safe, purposeful and in the child’s best interests. They also reinforce the importance of strong family support, early and sustained reunification planning, and permanence work that is ambitious for children while remaining realistic about risk, stability and the support families need to make change sustainable.

The chart below shows the age range distribution of children in care within North Yorkshire over the last six years, with the distribution between ages ranges not significantly altering despite the increase in the number of children in care.

2.3 Stability and Locality

Around 78% of children in care live within North Yorkshire. This is a positive position and reflects the Council’s commitment to keeping children close to home wherever this is safe and appropriate. Local placements support children to maintain school relationships, friendships, family time, identity and community links.

However, because North Yorkshire is such a large county, being placed within the county boundary does not always mean being close to home. For this reason, placement locality needs to be considered alongside distance, travel time, school continuity, family time and access to health and support services. The strategy therefore takes a more nuanced approach to locality, focusing on children’s lived experience rather than geography alone.

Placement stability remains a central measure of success. Long-term stability is approximately 74%, showing that many children experience consistent and enduring care. Placement instability has increased to around 14%, which indicates that some children and carers need additional support and that matching, crisis response and specialist provision need to be strengthened.

Improving sufficiency will help improve stability. When more well-matched homes are available locally, children are more likely to move into the right home first time, remain connected to their support networks and minimise avoidable changes. This benefits children, carers, schools, social workers and the wider system.

2.4 Local Context

North Yorkshire is the largest local authority area geographically in England. Our county includes a wide range of communities, including coastal towns, rural villages, market towns and larger urban areas. This diversity is one of our strengths; at the same time, it requires careful planning of care provision to ensure it reflects local patterns of need and the different communities children and families belong to.

Need is not evenly distributed across North Yorkshire. Our evidence shows that the greatest Need comes from the Scarborough and Harrogate areas, with Scarborough experiencing almost double the amount of Need than the next closest former district area. This helps us understand where provision may need to be strengthened, where we may need to recruit and support more carers, and where children may be most at risk of being placed away from their local communities if the right options are not available. The below table demonstrates the distribution and numbers of children coming into our care.

Our current internal provision includes No Wrong Door hubs in Scarborough and Harrogate, disabled children’s resource centres in Scarborough, Harrogate and Northallerton, and supported accommodation clustered around Scarborough, Harrogate/Knaresborough and Northallerton. This gives us a strong foundation, while highlighting the need to develop a more balanced and planned local offer across the county.

Given the concentration of need in Scarborough, this locality should be treated as a priority area for sufficiency planning. This does not mean that provision should only be developed in Scarborough, but it does mean that future fostering recruitment, residential development, supported accommodation planning, short break capacity and provider engagement should explicitly consider whether children from Scarborough and the wider east coast area can access the right support close to their communities. Strengthening local options in and around Scarborough will help reduce the risk of children being placed at distance from family networks, schools, trusted relationships and familiar services.

When we plan local sufficiency, we also need to take account of wider factors such as transport, workforce availability, housing supply, school access, health services and provider interest. Strengthening sufficiency in North Yorkshire will therefore require us to work in a coordinated way across children’s social care, commissioning, property, finance, planning, education, health, housing and community partners.

3. Sufficiency Gap Analysis

North Yorkshire has many strengths in its current care offer, including a strong in-house fostering base, low use of independent fostering agencies, established No Wrong Door provision and a clear commitment to local care. The sufficiency gap analysis helps identify where we can build on these strengths and where targeted development will have the greatest impact for children and young people.

The key message is that sufficiency improvement needs to take place across the whole system. Strengthening one part of the care offer will support the wider system. For example, increasing specialist foster care will reduce pressure on residential care; expanding short breaks and crisis support will help families remain together safely for longer; and increasing supported accommodation will improve pathways for older young people and care leavers.

In fostering, the opportunity is to grow the number and range of carers who can meet children’s changing needs. This includes carers for adolescents, brothers and sisters, children with disabilities, children with complex trauma and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The focus must be on both recruitment and retention, ensuring carers feel valued, supported and confident. This includes the need to develop a clearer advanced or specialist fostering offer for children whose needs require a higher level of skill, confidence, resilience and professional support from carers. Advanced foster carers will be particularly important for adolescents, children with complex trauma, disabled children, brothers and sisters, children at risk of residential care and children stepping down from residential or crisis provision. Strengthening this tier of fostering will improve matching, reduce avoidable moves and help more children remain in family-based care where this is right for them.

In residential care, the opportunity is to develop more small, local and specialist homes. These homes would support children who need a more individualised environment and who may not thrive in larger group settings. Building this capacity locally will help children remain closer to their communities and reduce the need for external or distant provision.

The residential gap is not limited to small homes. North Yorkshire also needs to strengthen access to medium and longer-term residential homes for children who require sustained residential stability, relationship-based care and a settled environment over time. For some children, particularly those with complex trauma, disability, neurodiversity or repeated placement disruption, the priority is not a short-term intervention but a home that can provide consistent care, therapeutic support, education stability and long-term planning. This includes a specific gap in medium-term homes for children with disabilities where family-based care, short breaks or existing residential options are not sufficient to meet need safely and sustainably.

In supported accommodation, the opportunity is to increase registered, high-quality provision that supports young people’s independence safely and effectively. This is particularly important for 16- and 17-year-olds and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The focus should be on both accommodation and the support that helps young people build skills, confidence, and resilience.

In short breaks and disability provision, the opportunity is to strengthen support for disabled children and their families. Timely and specialist short breaks help children have positive experiences, support family resilience and reduce the risk of crisis. This area is particularly important for prevention and for supporting children to remain safely within their families wherever possible.

In crisis provision, the opportunity is to develop planned emergency options so that children and young people can be supported at times of heightened need. Strengthening crisis provision will reduce reliance on reactive arrangements and support better decision-making, safeguarding and stability.

A critical part of this work is eliminating the use of unregistered provision. North Yorkshire is clear that caring for children in unregistered provision is not acceptable or normalised practice. It should only ever be considered in urgent and exceptional situations where no suitable registered provision is available and where the Council’s safeguarding and human rights duties to protect the child are engaged. Any such arrangement must be subject to immediate senior oversight, clear risk management, legal and safeguarding scrutiny, and an urgent plan to move the child into suitable registered provision. The purpose of strengthening planned crisis and emergency capacity is to prevent these situations arising wherever possible.

Overall, the gap analysis shows that North Yorkshire’s priorities are clear and deliverable. The Council has a strong foundation and clear direction. The next stage is to align planning, commissioning, workforce, property and partnership activity so that the right provision is developed in the right places.

Area	Gap	Impact
Advanced and specialist fostering	Insufficient availability of carers with the skills and support to care for children with more complex needs	Reduced choice and matching options, increasing the risk of placement instability or escalation to residential care
Small local residential homes	Limited small, local and specialist homes for children who need highly individualised residential care	Increased reliance on external, distant or less well-matched provision
Registered supported accommodation	Limited registered, high-quality provision for older young people, care leavers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children	Reduced availability of safe, lawful and supported pathways into independence
Short breaks and disability support	Insufficient flexible and specialist short break options for disabled children and children with complex needs	Greater pressure on families and increased risk of crisis escalation or care entry
Planned crisis and emergency capacity	Limited planned emergency options across fostering, residential care, short breaks and supported accommodation	Greater risk of reactive arrangements, high-cost placements and unsuitable or unregistered provision
Medium and long-term residential homes	Insufficient planned provision for children who need sustained residential stability	Increased risk of placement disruption, distant provision and reliance on emergency arrangements
Medium-term residential homes for disabled children	Limited specialist residential options for disabled children whose needs cannot be met through short breaks or family-based care alone	Greater pressure on families, increased crisis escalation and reduced ability to maintain children close to home

4. Strategic Priorities

The following eight strategic delivery priorities provide the focus for North Yorkshire’s sufficiency improvement programme over the life of this strategy. They translate the evidence from Need analysis, locality pressures and the sufficiency gap analysis into a clear programme of action. Together, these priorities are intended to strengthen local capacity, improve matching and stability, reduce reliance on distant or emergency provision, and ensure that children and young people are cared for in homes that are safe, nurturing, lawful and able to meet their needs.

Priority 1: Grow and diversify in-house fostering

North Yorkshire will strengthen family-based care by growing and diversifying the in-house fostering offer. This will include targeted recruitment, retention and support for foster carers who can care for adolescents, brothers and sisters, disabled children, children with complex trauma or emotional and behavioural needs, and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The aim is to increase the number of children who can live in stable, local family settings, with carers who feel valued, confident and well supported by the wider professional network.

Priority 2: Improve placement matching, stability and support

North Yorkshire will improve the way children are matched to homes and how placements are supported once they are made. This will include stronger use of assessment, children’s views, carer skills, locality information and professional judgement to identify the right home first time wherever possible. Improved wraparound support, crisis response, carer resilience and multi-agency planning will help reduce avoidable moves and improve children’s experience of stability, belonging and continuity.

Priority 3: Develop more small, local and specialist residential homes

North Yorkshire will expand local residential capacity where this is the right option for children whose needs cannot be met in foster care or other family-based arrangements. The focus will be on small, local and specialist homes that provide relational, therapeutic and individualised care. This includes building on the strengths of No Wrong Door and developing provision that enables children with complex trauma, disability, neurodiversity, emotional wellbeing needs or high levels of risk to remain closer to their communities, education and support networks.

Priority 4: Increase registered supported accommodation and independence pathways

North Yorkshire will increase the availability of registered, high-quality supported accommodation with a wider geographical reach for older young people where this is the right pathway. This priority includes 16- and 17-year-olds, care leavers and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, and will focus on safe accommodation, effective support, compliance, skills for independence and planned move-on. Supported accommodation will be used as part of a clear pathway to adulthood and not as a substitute for care where a young person requires foster care or residential care.

Priority 5: Expand short breaks and disability provision

North Yorkshire will strengthen short breaks and disability provision so that disabled children and their families can access timely, flexible and specialist support. This will include expanding in-house and commissioned short break options, improving data-led commissioning and developing a wider range of provision that supports children’s needs and family resilience. The intended impact is to reduce crisis escalation, support children to remain safely within their families where possible, and ensure disabled children have positive and high-quality experiences.

Priority 6: Build planned crisis and emergency capacity

North Yorkshire will develop a more planned and coordinated crisis and emergency response across the care system. This will include emergency fostering, short-stay residential options, crisis short breaks and emergency supported accommodation where appropriate. The purpose is to reduce reliance on reactive or unsuitable arrangements, strengthen safeguarding and decision-making at points of pressure, and ensure that children and young people receive a safe and proportionate response when needs escalate.

Priority 7: Use data, forecasting and locality planning to drive sufficiency

North Yorkshire will strengthen the use of data, forecasting and locality planning to inform sufficiency decisions. This will include predictive modelling, analysis of Need trends, impact of reforms, placement distance, stability, cost, quality, children’s needs and local provider capacity. In a large rural county, this priority is essential to ensuring that provision is developed in the right places and that decision-making reflects children’s lived experience of locality, not simply whether a placement is within the county boundary.

Priority 8: Shape a stronger local and regional provider market

North Yorkshire will shape a stronger mixed economy of care by developing high-quality internal services establishing relationships with trusted local providers and regional commissioning partners. This will include clear market engagement, transparent expectations about quality and outcomes, and a planned approach to deciding which provision should be developed internally and which should be commissioned externally.

North Yorkshire will also work across the region to become part of an established provider framework agreement remaining responsive to Regional Care Cooperative requests, developments and opportunities where these support improved sufficiency, quality and value for children and young people. To strengthen access to timely and effective provision further, the Council will also explore the development of a local provider framework, enabling us to work more proactively with the market to secure the right provision in the right places. The aim is to create a more resilient, responsive and sustainable market that improves local availability, value for money and confidence in the quality of care and outcomes for children and young people.

What these priorities will deliver

These priorities are not simply about increasing the number of available placements. They are about reshaping North Yorkshire’s care offer so that children and young people have access to the right home, in the right place, at the right time, with the right support around them.

Taken together, the priorities will strengthen the balance, quality and resilience of North Yorkshire’s care offer. They will support more children to live in well-matched family-based care where this is right for them, increase access to specialist and local provision, improve planned responses at times of crisis, and create clearer pathways into adulthood.

The overall aim is to reduce avoidable moves, reduce reliance on emergency or distant provision, and improve outcomes by ensuring that care is planned around children’s needs, relationships and long-term stability.

5. Delivery Programme by Provision and System Area

This section translates the strategic priorities into a practical delivery programme across each key part of the care system. It sets out what is working well, where provision and system arrangements need to be strengthened, and the actions that will be taken to improve sufficiency, quality, stability, locality and outcomes for children and young people.

Each area has existing strengths to build on, as well as specific sufficiency gaps that require a targeted response. The focus is on improving choice, matching, local access, specialist support and system resilience, rather than simply increasing the number of available places.

5.1 Fostering

What is working well

Fostering remains the cornerstone of North Yorkshire’s care offer. The Council has a strong in-house fostering base, with around 74% of children in care living in foster care. Reliance on independent fostering agencies is low, which demonstrates the strength of the internal model and provides a strong platform for further development. The majority of children are also placed locally, supporting continuity of relationships, education and community connections.

What needs strengthening

The fostering offer now needs to strengthen further in the availability of specialist carers for children with more complex needs, including adolescents, brother and sisters, disabled children, children with trauma-related needs and children who require more intensive support. Geographic matching also remains important in a large county, as being placed within North Yorkshire does not always mean being close to a child’s home community, school or family network.

A further priority is to define and grow an advanced fostering pathway. This should recognise that some children need carers who can offer a higher level of therapeutic understanding, practical resilience and partnership working with the professional network. The pathway should include clear expectations, enhanced training, peer support, specialist consultation and appropriate financial recognition so that carers are equipped and retained to meet more complex needs safely and confidently.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will continue to focus on targeted recruitment campaigns, enhanced financial support and incentives for foster carers, and the expansion of emergency and flexible fostering options. Recruitment activity will be shaped by current sufficiency gaps, supported by stronger retention arrangements for existing carers and a clear development offer for carers who can support children with complex needs, brothers and sisters and older children.

5.2 Residential Care

What is working well

North Yorkshire has an internal residential and edge-of-care offer, including No Wrong Door. This provides a recognised and effective model for supporting adolescents and reducing escalation where the right support is available at the right time. External usage remains comparatively low, which is a strength and reflects the Council’s commitment to local provision and strong oversight.

What needs strengthening

The residential care offer needs to strengthen further through the development of small specialist homes, crisis and short-stay provision, and joint health and social care models for children with the most complex needs. This is particularly important for children who may not be able to live in foster care and who require a highly individualised, therapeutic and relational environment.

There is also a need to ensure that residential development includes medium and longer-term homes for children who require enduring stability, not only small homes or short-stay crisis provision. These homes should provide a settled and therapeutic environment for children who need residential care as a planned and positive long-term option. This includes children with disabilities whose needs may require specialist residential care that is local, registered, high quality and able to work closely with families, schools, health partners and community services.

As North Yorkshire builds on the No Wrong Door model, there must also be a clear focus on securing the improvements needed to ensure consistently high-quality care across both hubs. Where inspection judgements, monitoring activity or quality assurance processes identify areas for improvement, these must be acted on swiftly and decisively through clear improvement plans, strengthened oversight, timely escalation where required and evidence of impact. The ambition is to retain the core value of the No Wrong Door approach while ensuring that all children experience care that is safe, effective, nurturing and consistently high quality.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include developing additional No Wrong Door hub provision, expanding small homes for children with complex needs, and increasing therapeutic provision. The focus will be on creating high-quality local options that reduce the need for distant or emergency placements, improve matching and support children to remain connected to their communities wherever this is safe and appropriate.

5.3 Supported Accommodation and UASC

What is working well

Supported accommodation is an important part of the pathway for older young people, including some 16- and 17-year-olds and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. Capacity has increased to 46 planned places and two emergency places, and crisis pathways have improved. This provides a stronger foundation for supporting young people to build independence while maintaining access to appropriate guidance, safeguarding and practical support.

What needs strengthening

The key areas for strengthening are registration compliance, independence pathways and sufficient provision for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children. The Council must ensure that all supported accommodation is safe, lawful, high quality and used only where it is the right option for the young person. For UASC, provision also needs to reflect cultural identity, language, trauma, legal processes, education, health and preparation for adulthood.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include increasing registered provision, expanding planned emergency capacity and strengthening transition to adulthood. This will require close alignment between children’s social care, care leaver services, housing, providers, education, health and community support so that young people experience a planned and supported pathway into independence.

5.4 Short Breaks and Disability

What is working well

Short breaks and disability support are essential to family resilience and to the wider sufficiency strategy. Dedicated leadership in this area and the development of an approved provider list and emergency provision provide a foundation for a more responsive offer for disabled children and their families, particularly where timely support can prevent escalation and help children remain safely within their families.

What needs strengthening

The areas requiring further strengthening include specialist provision, market capacity and crisis response. Families need access to a wider range of flexible, skilled and reliable short break options, particularly for children with complex needs, health needs, neurodiversity or behaviour that requires specialist support. Improved data is also needed to support commissioning decisions and ensure provision is planned around evidenced Need and needs.

Alongside short breaks, the Council also needs to consider the availability of medium-term residential options for disabled children whose needs cannot be safely met through short breaks alone. This provision would support children and families where there is a need for planned, specialist and stable care over a longer period, while maintaining strong links with family, education, health and community support wherever possible.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include expanding in-house short break provision, review of existing approved provider list and improving data and commissioning arrangements. The aim is to strengthen preventative support, improve choice for families, reduce crisis Need and ensure disabled children have access to positive, safe and high-quality short break experiences.

5.5 Placement Matching, Stability and Support

What is working well

North Yorkshire has a strong commitment to placing children in homes that are safe, local and able to meet their needs. Many children are placed within North Yorkshire, and long-term stability remains a strength for a significant proportion of children in care. Existing social work, fostering, residential, commissioning and reviewing arrangements provide a good foundation for improving matching and ensuring that children’s needs, relationships, education and community links are considered when placement decisions are made.

What needs strengthening

There is an opportunity to build further on North Yorkshire’s existing commitment to thoughtful placement matching, particularly for children with complex needs, where local options are more limited or where decisions need to be made quickly. Earlier and more coordinated support for children, carers and providers will help strengthen stability and sustain positive relationships. Matching will also continue to reflect North Yorkshire’s geography, recognising that the best match is not only about being within the county boundary; it is also about maintaining meaningful connections to a child’s home community, school, family network and trusted relationships wherever this is safe and in their best interests.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include strengthening placement matching processes, improving the use of locality and needs data, and ensuring earlier multi-agency planning for children at risk of placement disruption. The Council will develop clearer escalation and support arrangements where placements are under pressure, including targeted wraparound support, earlier involvement of specialist services and stronger learning from placement endings. The aim is to improve the likelihood of children moving into the right home first time, reduce avoidable moves and support carers and providers to sustain placements safely.

5.6 Planned Crisis and Emergency Capacity

What is working well

North Yorkshire has existing strengths in edge-of-care, family support, No Wrong Door, short breaks and supported accommodation pathways. These services provide an important platform for responding to children and families when needs escalate. There is also a clear strategic commitment to reducing reactive or unsuitable arrangements and ensuring that emergency responses are safe, lawful and proportionate.

What needs strengthening

Crisis and emergency capacity needs to be more planned, visible and coordinated across the whole care system. When emergency fostering, residential, short break or supported accommodation options are limited, children may experience unnecessary moves, delayed decision-making or provision that does not fully meet their needs. Stronger planning is needed so that emergency options are available in the right places, with clear criteria, quality oversight and routes back into stable longer-term arrangements.

Where children are cared for in unregistered arrangements, this must be understood as an urgent safeguarding and human rights issue rather than as a routine placement option. Such arrangements are not acceptable, safe or normalised practice and should only be used in exceptional circumstances where there is no suitable registered alternative immediately available. Every instance must have senior management oversight, clear legal and safeguarding scrutiny, active quality assurance and an urgent exit plan into suitable registered provision.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include developing a clearer crisis and emergency sufficiency model across fostering, residential care, short breaks and supported accommodation. This will include identifying the level and type of emergency capacity required, strengthening decision-making pathways, improving access to short-stay and step-down options, and ensuring that every emergency arrangement has a clear plan from the outset. The focus will be on preventing crisis where possible, responding safely where crisis occurs, and reducing the risk of children entering high-cost, distant or unsuitable provision because no planned alternative is available.

5.7 Data, Forecasting and Locality Planning

What is working well

North Yorkshire already uses a range of information to understand Need, placement patterns, stability, locality, provision type and cost. The strategy brings this evidence together to support more focused sufficiency planning and to ensure data is interpreted in the context of children’s lived experience.

What needs strengthening

There is a strong opportunity to build on North Yorkshire’s growing use of data and insight so that forecasting becomes more consistent, predictive and fully embedded in sufficiency decision-making. By bringing together information about future Need, children’s presenting needs, placement distance, placement stability, provider capacity, workforce availability, school access, transport, housing and regional market pressures, the Council can develop a richer and more forward-looking understanding of what children and families need. Strengthened locality planning will enable development activity to be targeted with greater confidence to the places where it will have the greatest impact, helping to ensure that more children can access the right care and support closer to the people, schools and communities that matter to them.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include developing a stronger sufficiency dashboard, using predictive analysis to identify future pressure points, and routinely reviewing Need by age, need, locality, provision type and distance from home. This intelligence will inform fostering recruitment, residential development, supported accommodation planning, short break commissioning and market engagement. The Council will use data not only to monitor performance, while also shaping investment decisions and testing whether new provision is improving children’s experience of stability, locality, quality and outcomes.

5.8 Market Shaping, Frameworks and Regional Collaboration

What is working well

North Yorkshire has a strong internal offer and comparatively low reliance on some external provision. The Council also has established commissioning, quality assurance and provider relationships that provide a foundation for shaping the market more proactively.

What needs strengthening

Market shaping needs to be more intentional, evidence-led and aligned with the sufficiency priorities. North Yorkshire needs timely access to providers who can deliver safe, high-quality and effective care across fostering, residential care, supported accommodation, short breaks and specialist services. This requires a stronger understanding of provider capacity and risk, clearer expectations about quality and outcomes, and active engagement with both local providers and regional commissioning arrangements.

Actions that will be taken

Delivery actions will include working across the region to become part of established agreements for provider frameworks and remaining responsive to Regional Care Cooperative requests, developments and opportunities where they support improved sufficiency for North Yorkshire children. The Council will also explore the development of a local provider framework to strengthen access to timely and effective provision, support more proactive market engagement and give providers clearer information about the types of provision needed. This approach will support a stronger mixed economy of care, improve local availability, strengthen quality oversight and help secure better value from commissioned provision.

6. Implementation, Delivery and Enablers

Delivery of this strategy will depend on a set of cross-cutting enablers that sit across every part of the care system. These include a stable, skilled and confident workforce; strong partnership working across children’s social care, health, education, SEND, housing, community safety, the voluntary sector and providers; improved data, forecasting and placement matching; and evidence-led commissioning and market shaping. These enablers are not separate from sufficiency: they are the conditions that will allow North Yorkshire to grow the right provision, improve matching, strengthen quality and achieve better outcomes for children and young people.

This section sets out how North Yorkshire will move from strategic priorities to delivery. It brings together the main enablers, delivery approach and milestones needed to strengthen sufficiency over the life of the strategy, while leaving detailed governance, performance and review arrangements to the sections that follow.

Financial sustainability is a core enabler of sufficiency. The rising cost of care, increased complexity of children’s needs and pressure within the external placement market mean that sufficiency planning must be closely aligned with budget planning, commissioning intentions and value for money. This is not about reducing quality or limiting children’s options; it is about ensuring that public resources are used in a planned and effective way to secure safe, high-quality, local provision that improves outcomes and reduces avoidable reliance on high-cost, distant or emergency arrangements.

6.1 Delivery Approach

The delivery approach will be based on five core principles: child-centred and locality-focused decision-making; evidence-led planning; phased and realistic implementation; partnership-based delivery; and clear governance, performance and review. These principles will ensure that activity remains focused on what children need, where provision is required and how sufficiency improvements translate into better experiences and outcomes.

The delivery approach will therefore include regular review of placement spend, cost trends, projected demand, market rates, internal provision costs and the financial impact of sufficiency developments. Investment decisions will need to consider both immediate affordability and longer-term value, including whether new or strengthened provision reduces instability, avoids escalation, improves locality, supports better outcomes and creates a more sustainable care system for the future.

6.2 Delivery Milestones Timeline

Phase	Timeline	Focus	Key Milestones
Phase 1: Stabilise, enhance understanding of need and design	2026/27	Strengthen grip on current sufficiency pressures, use intelligence to create and implement Need and predictive modelling tool and design the delivery arrangements needed to support implementation.	Confirm cross service governance arrangements; agree sufficiency dashboard; identify priority localities and cohorts; refresh fostering recruitment priorities; map emergency capacity; agree approach to regional frameworks and local provider framework development. Develop a workforce strategy to ensure sufficient capacity to staff internally developed provision
Phase 2: Develop and implement	2027/28	Develop new capacity, strengthen system pathways and begin implementation of agreed provision and commissioning plans.	Launch targeted fostering campaigns; implement specialist foster carer support offer; progress additional small residential and No Wrong Door-related provision; expand registered supported accommodation and planned emergency options; develop short break provider arrangements; implement workforce strategy to ensure staffing requirements are fulfilled, implement improved placement matching and disruption learning processes; develop sufficiency dashboard reporting; progress engagement on regional and local provider frameworks.
Phase 3: Embed and evaluate	2028/29	Embed delivery changes, evaluate impact and refine the sufficiency programme in response to evidence and children’s experiences.	Review impact on placement stability and locality; evaluate effectiveness of new provision; assess reduction in emergency, distant or unsuitable arrangements; review availability of specialist carers and providers; evaluate supported accommodation and short break developments; refresh market position and commissioning intentions; agree next-stage sufficiency priorities beyond 2029, review interaction with regional framework to consider next steps.

6.3 Governance, Performance and Review

Delivery of this strategy will require clear governance, robust performance oversight and a disciplined approach to review. Progress will be monitored through a sufficiency governance board within Children and Young People’s Services which has membership from across the wider council, with escalation through senior leadership, corporate parenting arrangements and wider council governance routes where required.

A quarterly review cycle will bring together delivery progress, performance data and qualitative feedback. This will ensure that the strategy remains a live, evidence-led programme rather than a static document. Review will consider both quantitative indicators and the lived experience of children and young people.

Key areas of performance will include:

• The proportion of children living within North Yorkshire and, critically, their distance from home communities
• Placement stability and the reduction of avoidable moves
• Availability and use of in-house provision, including foster care and residential care
• Growth in specialist fostering capacity and local residential provision
• Availability and quality of registered supported accommodation
• Access to short breaks and disability provision
• Use of emergency arrangements and reduction in unplanned or distant placements

Performance oversight will also include quality and outcome measures, including education continuity, emotional wellbeing, safeguarding, matching quality, transitions to adulthood and feedback from children, families, carers, providers and practitioners. Where data shows that sufficiency gaps are not closing, or that children’s experiences are not improving, the Council will adjust commissioning, market shaping, workforce planning, property development and partnership activity. This ensures that delivery remains responsive to changing need and focused on impact.

6.4 Annual refresh and next steps

This strategy represents a high-level framework for sufficiency improvement. A detailed annual delivery plan will be developed and refreshed each year to ensure that activity remains aligned to current Need, emerging need and system pressures.

The annual refresh will take account of:

• Changes in the number and needs of children in care
• Placement stability, distance from home and locality patterns
• Sufficiency gaps by provision type and geography
• Progress in developing new capacity across fostering, residential care, supported accommodation and short breaks
• Provider market capacity and conditions
• National policy, regulation and regional commissioning developments
• Feedback from children, young people, families, carers, providers and practitioners

This approach ensures that North Yorkshire maintains a dynamic and responsive sufficiency programme, capable of adapting to both local and national changes while maintaining a clear strategic direction.

7. Conclusion

This strategy sets out a clear and deliverable approach to meeting North Yorkshire’s sufficiency duty and strengthening its role as an ambitious corporate parent.

North Yorkshire starts from a position of strength, including a strong in-house fostering offer, low reliance on independent fostering agencies and established local provision such as No Wrong Door. These strengths provide a solid foundation for the next phase of sufficiency improvement.

The strategy responds to rising Need, increasing complexity of need, geographic challenges and national market pressures through a focused programme of development across fostering, residential care, supported accommodation, short breaks, crisis capacity, data and market shaping.

The implementation, governance and performance framework set out in this section provides the mechanism for turning that ambition into action. It ensures that delivery is visible, accountable and grounded in evidence, with a clear focus on impact rather than activity alone.

The ultimate measure of success will be whether children and young people experience care that feels safe, stable, well-matched and ambitious for their future.

By delivering this strategy with pace, discipline and partnership, North Yorkshire will continue to strengthen sufficiency and improve the quality, stability and outcomes of care for children and young people.