London’s Regional Care Cooperative (LRCC) is part of the London Improvement and Innovation Alliance (LIIA) which is the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) sector-led improvement partnership. 
 
It brings together 33 London local authorities as part of the largest regional care cooperative in the country. It will allow local authorities to drive down costs and share expertise whilst delivering a unified approach to care which prioritises quality, sufficiency and the needs of children and young people. 
 
The LRCC is supported by a team of Children’s Services Directors from across London. Tim Aldridge from Camden Council leads the team and is supported by Jonathan Williams from Sutton, Robert South from Ealing, Tara Geere from Havering and Alasdair Smith from Southwark. 
 
The LRCC reports to the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) and the board of the London Improvement and Innovation Alliance (LIIA) 

Children and young people who need care in London deserve to live in safe, nurturing, supportive homes that meet their needs, close to where they feel they belong. Listening to their voices and involving them in decision making about the services that shape their lives sits at the heart of everything we do. We worked with them to develop our vision and our mission. 

 
Our vision – “Delivering safe and nurturing care for London’s children” 

Our mission – “By keeping children’s voices at the heart of everything we do, we will foster belonging, build resilience and help every child to thrive. We will improve outcomes for children in care by ensuring every home is the right home – one that nurtures their wellbeing, development and future opportunities. Through One Customer partnership working, we will co-create a sustainable, high-quality care system that provides safe, stable and loving homes close to children’s communities” 
 
We have six priority areas for our work 
 
Family Placements –  we want to increase the number of London’s cared for children who live in family settings 

Residential Care – we want to boost London’s residential care capacity so children can stay local to their communities in supportive nourishing, high-quality care settings 

Disproportionality – we want to understand and address the causes of disproportionality in London’s cared for children population so we can support them to have happy fulfilling lives 

One Customer Approach – Currently there are 17 commissioning arrangements across London – we want deliver a ‘One Customer’ approach that will save money and deliver better outcomes. 

Data – we want to deliver evidence based commissioning which is underpinned by our Dynamic Sufficiency Tool, an interactive platform that gives commissioners a wide range of meaningful, real-time market insights. 

Workforce – we want to deliver better outcomes for cared for children by building and sustaining a skilled, sufficient and effective team of professionals and carers

We will work across the whole of London with all local authorities, using a ‘federated’ model of central coordination and sub-regional delivery of commissioning, foster care placements and residential care.   
 
All of our work is child centred so all the systems that are set up though this process are be designed to improve how children and young people experience care. 

Our work will be incremental and scalable. London is the biggest regional care cooperative and the environment is complex.  So, it’s important to develop the programme carefully, in a staged way, which ensures that all local authorities, and the Fostering Hubs that service them, are engaged and equipped to support and work with new cooperative arrangements. 

We will work to eliminate duplication and deliver value for money so that resources are targeted at the children and young people who need them most. 

We will develop clear lines of accountability to ensure that decision making takes into account the views of all stakeholders, including children and young people.