The Costs of Residential Child Care: Explaining Variations in the Public Sector

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The long-awaited report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee (1984), Children in Care, drew attention to two very durable features of policy-making in the personal social services: the influence of costs on both policy and practice, and the dearth of reliable cost data. For example, much of the discussion during the Committee’s examination of witnesses from the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS) focused on the relative costs of residential and boarding out placements, the escalating costs of care, the cost effectiveness of intermediate treatment as an alternative to custody and the sources of cost variations between different homes, local authorities and sectors. In each case the available cost information was sadly lacking. There have been other developments which have served to emphasise the pressing importance of costs in the social care area. The Social Work Service of the DHSS is being gradually transformed into an inspectorate with a particular interest in differences in provision and practice between authorities. At the same time, the newly established Audit Commission has drawn on a series of special studies to prepare its ‘Value for Money’ guidelines.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: