The webinar
On 11th February 2026, over 100 professionals from across England and Wales attended one of our knowledge exchange webinars, focused on the South West Regional Sufficiency Project. This project was undertaken by IPC working alongside 14 local authorities who form part of the South West Commissioning Alliance (SWCA).
Guest speakers included IPC project leads, John Wilkinson, Narinder Saggu and Gail Collins, SWCA Sufficiency Lead. Expert panel members included Ross Chick, Ian Tomlinson and Julie Breeze
The session presented key findings from the supply and demand analysis for provision for children in care, how regional commissioners are using this intelligence in practice, and the actions being taken across the South West to strengthen future sufficiency.
Attendees also gained insight into how the strategy was developed, including the data sources and analytical approach used to generate robust, meaningful intelligence that informed the regional strategy.
IPC shared key insights from the study, including:
- The importance of children’s voices and the contrasting experiences of care
- Rising demand for care in line with the national picture – 12% increase in the South West since 2021
- Complexity of need has increased, particularly related to neurodiversity, child exploitation and mental health
- Fostering capacity has reduced also in line with the national picture with 11% reduction in mainstream places in the South West
- Children’s home places are growing slowly, and at a slower rate in the South West than other regions.
SWCA identified the impact of the strategy and actions being taken forward to address sufficiency challenges including:
- Forging a unified collective approach between the 14 Local Authorities, focussed on regional priorities and finding local homes for local children
- Co-designing new ways of procuring home places in partnership with commissioners and providers across the region
- Creating a new model focused on meeting local children’s needs, using a regional framework that is data-led and provides growth opportunities and sustainability for providers in the region
- Creating a new regional framework, expected to go live by April 2028, coproduced with providers and including the views of care experienced young people.
Feedback
The webinar was well received by attendees, who highlighted the clarity, relevance and practical value of the findings. Comments included:
“Well informed honest knowledge exchange about one of the most challenging aspect of children’s social care markets.”
“Really interesting and quite validating in terms of what we are working towards in our region aligning with the work being done elsewhere!”
“ I liked everything about the webinar, excellent content on a national priority issue everyone is trying to address.”
“I valued the presentations and the panel discussions, highly interesting and relevant to my field of work.”
“Presentations were really well presented and engaging, with the right amount of detail.”
“It was good to see the key messages and have an overview of arrangements and a picture of where the SW region is at with its regional planning.”
Conclusion
The session concluded with:
- A lively and reflective discussion both on the implications of the findings for future developments, in particular the roll-out of RCCs
- The opportunity to learn from commissioners in Wales and their data dashboards
- And the need to improve relationships with ICB and health colleagues.
Download our report the South West Regional Sufficiency Strategy to learn more about the project.
