Ms Kate Duggan:

Mr. Smyth can come in on this but I have gone out and met 600 or 700 foster carers and foster carers do not actually talk about money. Of course they talk about inflationary costs, and there was an investment in additional foster carer allowance granted, but they talk as much about the access to specialist services like mental heath services and disability services for children who are in care. I do not think it is quite as simplistic as money to increase the number of foster carers. There are a couple of factors.

On cost benefit, we were in a position where 90% of our children in care were in foster care. That is now reduced to around 87%. We are still a European leader in terms of the number of children in care who are in foster care but with society changing there is not the same cohort of people coming forward. A value for money piece was done on the price of residential placements.