Instead, they had an “allocated worker” such as a social care worker or social care leader, and there were a number of children who had no allocated worker to coordinate their care.

The inspection by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa) of the Tusla service in July said overall it found that the capacity of the service to provide a quality, safe and effective foster care service had not improved since the previous inspection in February 2024.

One child told inspectors that they have had “eight social workers in two and half years” and the other child said that they had “different social workers every 40 days” when they first came into care.

Some 288 children were in foster care and all but 18 were living within the service area boundaries. The vast majority of children – 208 – were placed in general foster care, with seven of these being placed in private foster care. Eighty children were placed in relative foster care.

Of the five national standards assessed two were substantially compliant and three were not compliant. There were governance and management arrangements in place; however, the oversight and quality assurance systems were not robust and did not identify all risks relating to children in the foster care service.

There was an ongoing deficit in the children-in-care workforce capacity and this had negatively impacted on the quality of care provided to some of the children in foster care.

Systems in place for the management of concerns and allegations against foster carers required significant improvement to ensure adherence to Children First: National Guidance on the Protection and Welfare of Children (2017).

Care plans and review records reflected the assessment of children’s care needs and they were updated in line with statutory requirements for the majority of children. However, further improvement was required to ensure that placement plans were updated, the outcomes of review meetings were discussed with children and parents in a timely manner, and a review of the platform used for review meetings was required to ensure meaningful engagement of children.

The service area had a local service improvement plan in place that set out its key priorities and actions. Appropriate systems were in place to monitor the progress of the service improvement plan, and managers were aware of and trying to address the gaps in meeting the needs of children. For the most part, practices were in line with local standard operating procedures; however, improvement was required with regard to the consistent adherence to these procedures.

In addition, the majority of the procedures and guidance documents had not been reviewed and updated within the specified time frames. Further to this, staff supervision and caseload management for social care staff required improvement.

Following the inspection, Hiqa escalated eight individual cases and sought assurances in respect to safeguarding practices, oversight of case management, dual unallocated cases and the capacity of the service to ensure all children have an allocated social worker and children are visited in line with the regulations. The service provided satisfactory assurances to Hiqa in respect of these escalations after the inspection.