Placement Standards National Working Group - Q1 - 18th March 2026

[DJavur]

Social Care Placement Working Group - Session 4 Summary

Date: 18th March 2026
Time: 2:00 - 3:30 PM GMT
Location: MS Teams

Session Slides: 20260217-WorkingGroup_1v1.0.pdf

Overview

This meeting convened stakeholders to review progress and next steps in the rollout of the Placement Data Standard for children’s social care, focusing on regional pilots, technical design issues, and future governance. Participants discussed learnings from recent implementations, addressed outstanding design challenges, and considered strategies for scaling and sustaining the standard nationally. The session emphasised collaborative problem-solving, integration with broader sector reforms, and the importance of ongoing stakeholder engagement. The group also explored mechanisms for incentivising adoption and ensuring the standard remains relevant as sector needs evolve.

Key updates

• Housekeeping and Programme Context: Ivjyot introduced the meeting, outlined housekeeping rules, and clarified that the focus was on Placement Standards within a wider three-year programme funded by DFE, in partnership with Quorum and the Open Data Institute.
• Recap of 2025 Achievements: Ivjyot summarised the adoption of version one of the Placement Standard, noting the shift in the working group’s role from design and launch to overseeing scaling and fidelity as the standard moves into live use.
• Regional Pilot Updates – North East: Caroline and Kim provided a detailed update on the North East pilot, highlighting successful governance arrangements, a joint data sharing agreement across 12 local authorities, and plans for the first data collection in April, with a regional dashboard to follow.
• Regional Pilot Updates – Greater Manchester: Hannah described Greater Manchester’s approach, including integration of child-level data, linking care history and commissioning datasets, and plans to use the standard for needs-led commissioning and market shaping, with onboarding of local authorities as the next step.
• Open Design Issues and Solutions: Ivjyot and Madeline addressed four outstanding design issues—cost breakdown, location capture, commissioner use, and quality assurance—sharing emerging solutions such as splitting weekly costs into core, additional, and education components, and piloting new location fields in London.
• Discussion on Cost Framework Alignment: Marie raised concerns about differences between the proposed cost breakdown and existing North East framework contracts, prompting agreement to revisit and reconcile these approaches in future deep dives.
• Quality Assurance and Data Use: Kim and Ivjyot confirmed that quality assurance processes are being developed in partnership with Durham, with the first data return expected in April and subsequent deep dives planned to refine the approach.
• Governance and Terms of Reference for 2026: Madeline and Ivjyot outlined the new terms of reference for the working group, focusing on scaling, maintaining fidelity, championing the standard, and making recommendations to DFE, with quarterly meetings and annual reviews.
• Scaling and Incentivisation Strategies: Madeline led a discussion on options for incentivising adoption, including linking to RCC funding, conditional grants, and potential integration with Ofsted frameworks, with input from Caroline, Brooke, and Ida on feasibility and sector impact.
• Nuances in Placement Matching and Sufficiency: Marie, Hannah, Wendy, and others discussed the limitations of the data standard in capturing relationship-based and contractual factors affecting placement offers, agreeing that supplementary qualitative data and assessment tools may be needed for a fuller sufficiency picture.
• Next Steps and Closing: Ivjyot confirmed that a meeting summary and decision links would be circulated via GitHub, and invited further feedback and offline contributions from participants.