Regional Care Cooperatives, what they mean for fostering

If you work in a local authority or a fostering agency, Regional Care Cooperatives (RCCs) are now part of your landscape, not a distant proposal. They change how children's placements are planned, commissioned and found, and they are already live in parts of England. This guide explains what an RCC is, where the idea came from, where it has reached, and what it means for you, in plain terms.

Children's social care policy moves quickly. This guide was last checked in October 2026. For the current legal position and the latest list of cooperatives, follow the official sources linked at the end.

What a Regional Care Cooperative is

Today, each of the roughly 150 local authorities in England has largely planned and bought placements on its own. The widely shared view is that this produces a placement system that is expensive, hard to plan, and too often places children a long way from home.

A Regional Care Cooperative is a partnership of local authorities working together across a region to:

• forecast how many placements of each kind the region will need;
• commission and help develop the capacity to meet it, including more public and not-for-profit provision;
• manage the provider market at a regional level rather than authority by authority;
• find the right placement for a child using a shared picture across the region, often working alongside health, police and other services.

The aim, in one line, is sufficiency: the right placements, in the right places, so more children can be cared for close to home at a fair cost, with better recruitment and retention of carers and staff.

Where the idea came from

RCCs grew out of the Independent Review of Children's Social Care led by Josh MacAlister, whose final report was published in May 2022. The government's implementation strategy, Stable Homes, Built on Love (2023), took the idea forward and committed to testing it through regional pilots.

It is now backed by law. The Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (Royal Assent 29 April 2026) puts regional cooperation on a statutory footing, referring to "regional co-operation arrangements" and allowing the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to work together on care placements and on shaping the provider market. The same Act tightens oversight of the children's social care market, including greater financial transparency and measures aimed at excessive profit among providers. Commencement dates for individual provisions can vary, so check the Act itself for timing.

Where it has reached

RCCs began as pathfinders in 2025, in Greater Manchester (covering around ten council areas) and the South East (a grouping of around eighteen local authorities, including Brighton and Hove, Kent, Surrey and Oxfordshire).

In 2026 the programme expanded, with five further cooperatives announced for London, the North East, the East Midlands, the West Midlands, and Cheshire and Merseyside. Between them, the cooperatives now cover more than a hundred local authorities across England. (Figures and the exact announcement date move, so confirm the current list with the Department for Education before relying on specifics.)

What it means for local authorities

• Planning moves up a level. Sufficiency forecasting and commissioning shift toward the cooperative, so good regional data on need and on available capacity becomes essential.
• More collaboration, less going it alone. Finding a placement increasingly means drawing on a shared regional picture of who can care for a child, not just your own list and a round of phone calls.
• Transparency and accountability rise. Decisions about children taken across organisations need to be explainable and auditable, to families and to inspection.

What it means for fostering agencies

• Your relationship may become regional. Over time, framework and commissioning relationships may run through the cooperative as well as, or instead of, individual authorities.
• Fit and locality matter more than ever. The whole point is placing children close to home with the right match, so being visible, with accurate availability and a clear picture of what each household can offer, is an advantage.
• Plan for market change. The reforms that create RCCs also tighten oversight of provider finances and profit. Agencies should plan for a system that rewards transparency, locality and outcomes, and should not assume today's market stays unchanged.

How to prepare, whichever side you are on

The reform rewards the same few things from everyone:

1. Good data. Accurate, current information on need and on available capacity, not a spreadsheet rebuilt the night before.
2. Visibility across organisations. The ability to see and share the right information between authorities and agencies in a region.
3. Matching on what matters. Placing a child by locality, needs and keeping siblings together, not by whoever answers the phone first.
4. Decisions you can explain. A clear, auditable record of who decided what, and why, that holds up to scrutiny.

How KinMatch fits

KinMatch was built around the same goals the reform is reaching for: matching a child to the right local home with the reasons shown, giving local authorities a free way to share referrals and see available carers across a network of agencies, and keeping a tamper-evident, independently timestamped record of every decision. It is the kind of shared, explainable, auditable matching that regional working needs, available today.

To be clear, KinMatch is not part of any Regional Care Cooperative or pathfinder, and we do not speak for them. We support the aims: regional sufficiency, children placed closer to home, and transparent decisions. If you are a local authority or an agency thinking about how to get ready, we would be glad to talk, at [email protected].

Sources and further reading

• Independent Review of Children's Social Care, final report (2022).
• Stable Homes, Built on Love, the government's implementation strategy (gov.uk).
• Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 (legislation.gov.uk).
• The Department for Education's current guidance on Regional Care Cooperatives.