11. August 2026

POINT 09/100 — Can Senior Leaders See What Is Really Happening?

Article written by Rolfe Pearce MBA in the category Uncategorized

THE 100-POINT FOSTER CARER RECRUITMENT REVIEW

POINT 09/100 — Can Senior Leaders See What Is Really Happening?

Stage One: Strategy & Leadership

Imagine I attend your senior management meeting.

The Foster Carer Recruitment report appears.

It says:

52 enquiries this month.

There is a graph.

Perhaps the number is green.

Perhaps it is up on last month.

The meeting moves on.

But I have a problem.

I still don't know whether recruitment is going well.

Fifty-two enquiries could be excellent.

It could be disappointing.

It could be almost irrelevant.

Because I don't yet know:

how many were suitable,

where they came from,

whether they were in the right geographical areas,

how quickly they were contacted,

how many progressed,

where people subsequently stopped,

what is sitting in the existing pipeline,

how old those cases are,

or whether the organisation is likely to achieve the fostering capacity it actually needs.

That is the distinction at the heart of Point 09 of the 100-Point Foster Carer Recruitment Review.

Reporting numbers is not the same thing as creating management visibility.

Foster Carer Recruitment produces plenty of data

Most fostering providers do not suffer from a complete absence of information.

There may be data in:

marketing platforms,

Google Analytics,

the website,

a CRM,

spreadsheets,

social-work systems,

assessment trackers,

finance systems,

regional hubs,

and monthly reports.

The problem can be almost the opposite.

There is so much data that the important information becomes difficult to see.

Senior leaders do not need every available number.

They need the numbers that help them answer useful management questions.

“How many enquiries?” is only the beginning

Enquiry volume matters.

Without sufficient prospective foster carers entering the system, there cannot be sufficient approvals later.

But the enquiry number by itself has very limited diagnostic value.

Suppose:

Provider A receives 100 enquiries.

Twenty-five are suitable and ten progress to Initial Home Visit.

Provider B receives 60 enquiries.

Thirty-five are suitable and twenty-five progress.

Which provider had the better month?

The answer is not necessarily Provider A simply because 100 is bigger than 60.

This is why recruitment data needs context.

National figures demonstrate the danger of simplistic ratios

The Government's February 2026 Renewing Fostering plan notes that there were almost 150,000 fostering enquiries during 2024/25 and 7,365 newly approved foster carers. But the Government itself cautions that enquiry figures may include multiple enquiries from the same individuals and that data collection practices vary.

That is important.

We should not simply divide one number by the other and declare a national enquiry-to-approval conversion rate.

They are not necessarily the same cohort.

The units are different.

People can make multiple enquiries.

Some of the people approved this year may have enquired in the previous year.

This illustrates an important principle:

A number can be accurate and still be interpreted incorrectly.

Good management information therefore requires more than arithmetic.

It requires understanding what the data actually represents.

Senior leaders need to see flow, not simply totals

Think of the recruitment process as movement.

People enter.

They progress.

They wait.

They withdraw.

They are declined.

They defer.

They apply.

They enter assessment.

They reach panel.

Some are approved.

A monthly report containing only:

Enquiries: 52
Applications: 8
Approvals: 3

does not show that movement particularly well.

It is a snapshot of three totals.

I would also want to understand:

What happened to the 52?

What happened to last month's 48?

Where are the eight applicants now?

How long have they been there?

What is likely to happen next?

This is the difference between volume reporting and pipeline management.

The Government is now explicitly asking for end-to-end visibility

The Department for Education's 2026 end-to-end fostering programme describes transparent performance monitoring across the complete pipeline — including enquiries, applications and approvals, and then onwards into placement outcomes, retention, stability and carer diversity. It also states that a performance framework will underpin data collection and monitoring.

That direction is significant.

It recognises that the recruitment result cannot be understood properly by looking at one stage in isolation.

The Department for Education's wider children's social care dashboard is built around a similar principle: bringing data together to support learning and help national, regional and Local Authority leaders understand progress towards outcomes.

The operative word for me is:

Learning.

A dashboard should not exist simply because somebody requires a dashboard.

It should help the organisation understand something.

Start with five leadership questions

I think the recruitment dashboard should help a senior leader answer five basic questions.

1. ARE WE GENERATING ENOUGH OF THE RIGHT INTEREST?

Not simply:

How many enquiries?

But:

Are they suitable?

Are they coming from the audiences we need?

Are they in the right locations?

2. ARE PEOPLE PROGRESSING?

What proportion moves from:

enquiry,

to qualified enquiry,

to Initial Home Visit,

to application,

to assessment,

to approval?

Point 03 examined how those conversion rates allow a target to be built backwards.

Here we are asking whether leadership can see those conversions as they happen.

3. WHERE IS THE PIPELINE SLOWING DOWN?

How many people are currently sitting at each stage?

How long have they been there?

Which cases are outside the expected timescale?

A pipeline can look healthy in aggregate while containing applicants who have quietly stopped moving.

4. WHERE ARE WE LOSING PEOPLE?

Withdrawal is not automatically failure.

Some attrition is appropriate.

But leaders should understand:

where it occurs,

why it occurs,

whether patterns are emerging,

and which parts appear avoidable.

Ofsted's latest figures show that, among in-year mainstream applications withdrawn by applicants, 20% recorded that the fostering process was not what they expected.

That is precisely the kind of information that should cause an organisation to ask a further question.

Not merely record a withdrawal code.

5. ARE WE MOVING TOWARDS THE CAPACITY WE ACTUALLY NEED?

Ultimately the dashboard needs to reconnect with Point 02.

The objective is not:

more website traffic,

more enquiries,

or even more applications.

The objective is the creation of appropriate fostering capacity.

So senior leaders should be able to see whether recruitment performance is moving the organisation towards that strategic requirement.

The importance of ageing

This is one of the most useful pieces of recruitment information — and one of the easiest to overlook.

Imagine two providers.

Both have:

30 active prospective carers in the pipeline.

Looks identical.

But Provider A has:

twenty-two cases that moved within the last fourteen days.

Provider B has:

eighteen cases that have had no meaningful movement for more than six weeks.

Those are completely different recruitment positions.

Pipeline size without pipeline age can be misleading.

I would want to know:

how many cases are aged 0–14 days,

15–30 days,

31–60 days,

61–90 days,

and beyond.

The precise bands can vary.

The principle is what matters.

Where is time accumulating?

Measure waiting, not just completion

Point 08 looked at the interface between Recruitment and Assessment.

This is where management information can expose whether that interface is working.

For example:

application received:

12 May

assessor allocated:

5 June

first assessment visit:

17 June

A report might eventually show:

Assessment in progress.

But that description hides the fact that the applicant spent several weeks waiting for meaningful progress.

Government's current reform plan specifically identifies delays in recruitment and assessment as a problem, noting that many prospective carers wait significant periods to progress.

So I would separate:

work time

from:

waiting time.

They are not the same thing.

Source matters — but not simply because of cost

Marketing reports frequently focus on:

cost per click,

cost per enquiry,

reach,

impressions,

website traffic.

Useful information.

But recruitment needs to go further.

Which sources produce:

qualified enquiries?

Initial Home Visits?

applications?

assessments?

approvals?

A channel that produces expensive enquiries may ultimately produce inexpensive approvals.

A channel producing very cheap enquiries may create enormous recruiter workload and very few viable applicants.

The cheapest lead is not necessarily the most effective recruitment source.

We will examine marketing in much greater detail later in the 100-Point Review.

For Stage One, senior leaders simply need to know that the quality of the source should eventually be connected to the outcome.

Geography should be visible

Point 02 established that recruitment need is geographical.

Therefore reporting should be geographical too.

Imagine a Local Authority reports:

25 new enquiries this month.

Good.

But what if:

twenty-three come from areas where the authority already has reasonable capacity,

while only two come from the area where placement pressure is greatest?

The recruitment number can be positive while the sufficiency problem remains largely unchanged.

The same issue applies to an IFA.

Enquiries need to be understood in relation to:

commissioner demand,

office coverage,

travel,

existing carer capacity,

and placement geography.

Demographics can reveal who you are actually reaching

A recruitment strategy may say:

We need to broaden the pool of people considering fostering.

Fine.

Can you see whether that is happening?

Depending upon what is relevant and lawful to monitor, leadership might need visibility of:

age profile,

household type,

employment,

ethnicity,

gender,

geography,

or other characteristics.

The purpose is not data collection for its own sake.

It is to test whether the audiences identified in the strategy are actually entering the funnel.

If the strategic audience changes but the people enquiring remain essentially identical, something in the attraction strategy may not be working.

Averages can hide variation

This matters enormously.

Suppose the average time from enquiry to Initial Home Visit is:

12 days.

Sounds reasonable.

But perhaps:

half are completed within three days,

while the other half wait three weeks.

The average conceals two completely different candidate experiences.

The same applies to:

assessment times,

response times,

conversion rates,

and costs.

Whenever a single average is reported, I would want to understand whether there is significant variation underneath it.

Monthly comparisons can mislead

Another common report says:

Enquiries are up 20% on last month.

Potentially useful.

But last month may have been unusually poor.

Seasonality may matter.

A campaign may have distorted the comparison.

A national fostering event may have increased sector-wide interest.

One month is a very short recruitment window.

Better context might include:

this month,

previous month,

same month last year,

rolling three months,

year-to-date,

and progress against required pipeline.

Senior managers do not need all of those in every presentation.

But somebody needs access to them.

Leading and lagging indicators

This is an important management distinction.

Lagging indicators

tell you what has already happened.

Examples:

approvals,

annual recruitment total,

deregistrations.

By the time these numbers change, much of the underlying activity occurred months earlier.

Leading indicators

give you earlier information about what may happen.

Examples might include:

qualified enquiry volume,

Initial Home Visit bookings,

applications,

assessment starts,

case ageing,

conversion change.

A service could be on target for approvals today while the early pipeline is collapsing.

If leadership only watches approvals, it may discover the problem several months too late.

You need to see the future forming inside the pipeline.

Red, amber and green are not enough

Traffic-light dashboards can be useful.

They simplify complexity.

But they can also hide it.

Imagine:

Enquiry target — GREEN

Application target — GREEN

Approval target — AMBER

That tells me where the numbers sit relative to target.

It does not tell me:

why,

what changed,

where the constraint is,

or what the organisation needs to understand.

A good dashboard therefore needs a small amount of narrative.

Not pages.

Something like:

IHV conversion has fallen for the third consecutive month, concentrated among paid-social enquiries in two areas. Review underway.

Now the number has meaning.

Data should trigger questions

This is the part of reporting I think is most valuable.

Imagine the report says:

Enquiries +25%

The first question is:

Why?

Perhaps a campaign worked.

Perhaps media spend increased.

Perhaps national publicity increased interest.

Perhaps counting changed.

Then:

Did suitable enquiries also rise?

Then:

Did IHVs rise?

Then:

Did applications rise?

Then:

Can Assessment absorb them?

The purpose of data is not to end the conversation.

Good data starts the right conversation.

Data quality matters

There is no value in sophisticated dashboards built on inconsistent definitions.

What counts as an enquiry?

Someone filling in a form?

A telephone call?

A repeat contact?

An enquiry transferred from a regional hub?

If someone contacts three providers, is that three enquiries?

If the same person contacts twice, is that one or two?

The DfE itself notes limitations around fostering enquiry data, including multiple enquiries and differences in how organisations record them.

So before becoming obsessed with visualisation, agree the definitions.

Otherwise the dashboard can become very precise about something that is not consistently measured.

Cohorts matter

Suppose you receive:

600 enquiries in 2026.

And approve:

30 households in 2026.

It may be tempting to say:

5% conversion.

But those 30 approved households may include people who first enquired during 2025.

Many of the 600 enquiries may still be progressing into 2027.

That is why mature recruitment analysis should sometimes follow cohorts.

For example:

Of everyone who enquired between April and June, what eventually happened?

That tells you something different from comparing unrelated annual totals.

This matters particularly in fostering because the recruitment and assessment journey can extend across many months.

The dashboard should reflect different levels of management

A recruiter needs detailed operational information.

A Recruitment Manager needs pipeline information.

A Director may need:

strategic outcome,

trend,

risk,

exceptions,

forecast,

and decisions required.

Trying to use the same report for everybody often creates enormous spreadsheets that satisfy nobody.

I would therefore ask:

What decision is this information intended to support?

If there is no answer, question why that number needs to appear at senior level.

The one-page leadership view

If I were designing a senior Foster Carer Recruitment dashboard, I would want a concise first page.

Perhaps something like:

REQUIRED OUTCOME

Annual/net capacity requirement.

FORECAST

Where current pipeline suggests the organisation will finish.

ENQUIRY HEALTH

Volume + suitable/qualified proportion.

CONVERSION

Key stage-to-stage movement.

PIPELINE

Numbers currently sitting at each major stage.

AGEING

Cases outside expected timescale.

WITHDRAWAL

Volume + principal emerging reasons.

SOURCE

Which routes are producing meaningful progression.

GEOGRAPHY

Whether recruitment aligns with capacity need.

EXCEPTIONS / RISKS

What leadership needs to understand.

Everything else can sit underneath.

Senior management should be able to look at that first page and know:

Where should I ask the next question?

Forecasting is more useful than rear-view reporting

Imagine it is November.

The annual target is:

20 approvals.

Ten have been achieved.

The report says:

50% of target delivered.

That sounds neutral.

But perhaps:

eight applicants are approaching panel,

six assessments are progressing strongly,

and five more applications look promising.

The forecast may be healthy.

Alternatively:

ten approvals have been achieved,

but only two assessments remain active,

applications have fallen sharply,

and enquiry quality has deteriorated for three months.

Same headline number.

Completely different strategic position.

Leaders need forecast, not simply achievement-to-date.

Reports should surface exceptions

Senior managers do not necessarily need to inspect every case.

They need visibility of the unusual.

For example:

application awaiting allocation > 14 days,

no candidate contact > 10 days,

assessment outside expected timescale,

conversion down significantly,

geographic priority receiving insufficient enquiries,

campaign volume increasing but quality deteriorating.

These are exceptions.

A good reporting system brings them to the surface.

The senior leader then does not have to search through hundreds of rows to discover the problem.

Beware the “good news” report

There is also a cultural issue.

Reports can gradually become presentations designed to demonstrate that everything is under control.

Lots of activity.

Positive examples.

Green boxes.

Numbers explained away.

But management information has a different job.

It needs to make problems more visible, not more comfortable.

A useful recruitment report should be able to say:

“This is not working as expected.”

without that statement being interpreted as failure by the person presenting it.

Because discovering a problem early is good management.

Hiding it until year-end is not.

Ten questions I would ask

Can leadership see the whole recruitment pipeline from enquiry to approval?
Do you know the conversion rate between each meaningful stage?
Can you see how long cases have been sitting at each stage?
Can you identify where avoidable waiting is occurring?
Do you know why prospective carers withdraw?
Can you connect recruitment source to progression rather than just enquiry?
Can you see geographic performance against actual fostering need?
Does the report contain leading indicators as well as final outcomes?
Does it provide a forecast of where recruitment is heading?
Could a senior leader looking at the report identify the emerging problem before the annual target is missed?

That last question is my Point 09 test.

Where FCR Specialist fits

Fostering providers often have data.

The difficulty is turning it into useful recruitment intelligence.

My Foster Carer Recruitment Diagnostic and Re-tune examines not simply what information is collected, but whether it allows the organisation to understand:

where people are,
where they move,
where they stop,
how long they wait,
where they came from,
why they withdraw,
and whether the current pipeline is likely to deliver the required outcome.

Sometimes the solution is a better dashboard.

Sometimes it is a simpler one.

Sometimes it is agreeing consistent definitions.

Sometimes the organisation already has the information — but nobody has connected it.

The objective isn't more reporting.

It is better visibility.

Because senior leaders cannot intervene intelligently in a system they cannot see.