Redbridge Council's Cabinet has approved a new strategy aimed at ensuring sufficient and appropriate accommodation for children in care and care-experienced young people.
The Children's Social Care Sufficiency Strategy 2026–2029, adopted at a Cabinet meeting on Thursday, 17 September 2026, outlines how the council will meet its statutory duty to provide adequate housing for these vulnerable groups.
The strategy acknowledges the ongoing pressures within the care market, including increasing complexity of need, limited local capacity, rising costs, and a growing demand for placements for adolescents and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children.
Councillor Lloyd Duddridge, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Education, presented the strategy, highlighting a phased approach to meeting sufficiency needs over the next three years. This approach balances short-term stability through regional commissioning with a progressive strengthening of local capacity. The strategy adopts a phased and pragmatic approach, maintaining short-term stability through pan-London and sub-regional frameworks while investing in sustainable local capacity.
The aim is to progressively strengthen local capacity through prevention, reunification, kinship care, in-house and specialist fostering, improved out-of-hours emergency provision and stronger supported accommodation pathways.
Key priorities include expanding in-house fostering, developing a dedicated kinship hub, improving out-of-hours emergency provision, and enhancing supported accommodation pathways for 16–18-year-olds and care leavers.
The strategy also aligns with the council's wider approach to early intervention and family help, as well as corporate planning and place-based work. It aims to ensure that children receive the right help at the right time, keeping them within their families and communities wherever possible.
To measure the success of the strategy, Redbridge Council has set the following Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): an increase in in-borough placements from baseline to target by 2029; a year-on-year reduction in Independent Fostering Agency (IFA) reliance; maintained placement stability (defined as 3+ moves) below a defined threshold; improved Education, Employment, and Training (EET) outcomes for care leavers annually; supported accommodation progression measures, such as tenancy sustainment and duration; and the average cost per placement to ensure value for money. The strategy also outlines annual milestones, including fostering growth, kinship strategy development, supported accommodation expansion, and progress against regional commissioning commitments.
The strategy is supported by the Children's Market Position Statement 2026–2029, which provides an evidence base and commissioning signals for providers and partners. This statement offers clarity on the council's strategic direction and acknowledges system pressures. It outlines commissioning intentions, market pressures, and priorities, with a focus on growing local, family-based care, increasing local placement capacity for adolescents and young people with complex needs, and working collaboratively through Regional Care Collaborative (RCC) arrangements. Providers are encouraged to align with this direction by investing in local capacity, supporting placement stability, and demonstrating how their services contribute to improved outcomes for children and young people. See Public reports pack 17th Sep 2026
