Placement & Homes Strategy for Children and Young People 2026 to 2030

Our placement sufficiency ambitions will be translated into action through a structured delivery plan that aligns resources, governance, and accountability mechanisms. This section outlines how we will move from strategy to operational impact.

To operationalise the five strategic objectives set out above, we will adopt a phased delivery approach underpinned by robust programme governance, cross directorate collaboration, and active co-production with children, carers and partners. This section outlines how we will translate strategic intent into measurable action, ensuring our ambitions are delivered through structured implementation, resourcing and monitoring.

A strengthened governance structure will ensure delivery is robustly managed and progress is tracked:

• Children’s Sufficiency Delivery Board: Senior leaders from across social care, commissioning, housing, education, and finance will oversee strategy implementation.
• Project Sub-Groups: Task and finish groups will lead on specific workstreams including fostering reform, residential development, and supported accommodation.
• Quarterly Reporting: Progress will be monitored and reported to the Children’s Services Senior Leadership Team (SLT), and Corporate Parenting Panel.

A dedicated programme team – working in partnership with service leads – will coordinate sufficiency delivery, supported by:

• Project management office (PMO) support to drive delivery.
• Financial analysts to track cost-benefit realisation.
• Business intelligence to provide real-time data and forecasting.
• Commissioning leads to manage market engagement and provider oversight.

The programme will be delivered in phases aligned to capital spend, workforce recruitment, and service transformation:

• 2025–2026: Deliver Phase 1 and 2 of the residential programme, embed fostering reforms, initiate supported accommodation delivery.
• 2026–2027: Consolidate new residential placements, expand fostering and therapeutic provision, embed new brokerage systems.
• 2027–2029: Transition to a business-as-usual model with sufficiency embedded across the system and monitored as part of routine practice.

Successful delivery requires alignment with wider strategic agendas:

• SEND and Inclusion Strategy (for children with disabilities and EHCPs)
• Housing Strategy (to support 16+ accommodation models)
• Early Help Strategy and Family Hubs (to strengthen edge of care offer)
• Strategic Asset Management Plan

These dependencies will be actively managed through joint planning and shared governance arrangements.

Children, young people and carers will be active participants in the design and review of our sufficiency response:

• Regular consultation through We Do Care and care leaver forums.
• Carer engagement events and training feedback loops.
• User-informed reviews of placement matching and wraparound support.
• Explore additional opportunities to coproduce across our portfolios including scoping of a Young Commissioners Project.

This collaborative approach will ensure the delivery plan reflects lived experience and remains responsive to what children tell us matters most.

The next section sets out our approach to monitoring impact and measuring success.