To determine what are the critical success factors in Liverpool City Council ensuring the placement stability of its Looked After Children

Abstract

Liverpool City Council (LCC) is the corporate parent for 853 (as at January 2009) Looked After Children (LAC). It is the council’s responsibility therefore to ensure that these children have the same opportunities and quality of life that all other children enjoy. One of the crucial factors is that that they should have a stable and happy home life. The stability of placement of LAC is one of the most important performance indicators monitored by central government. The stability of placement is judged by how many placements a LAC child has in a given year. If the number of placements, in the given year, is above three then this is considered poor performance. The best performing local authorities are achieving a percentage of below 10% of LAC with three or more placements. Liverpool’s published figure for this performance indicator in 2007/08 was 13.3%. It is important therefore that this performance is improved. This dissertation examines the positive outcomes of placement stability and the negative outcomes of placement instability. It investigates how the problem of placement instability can be resolved in both Liverpool and in the other five greater Merseyside local authorities. The final chapter offers recommendations on possible measures to improve placement stability for Liverpool’s LAC.