in the paper centre the reforms on supporting children and families to stay together; when this is not in a child’s best interests, children should be supported to live with kinship or foster carers rather than in residential care. The paper takes forward many initiatives recommended in the Independent review of children’s social care (MacAlister, 2022), including the regionalising of placement commissioning through the establishment of regional care co-operatives (RCCs). The ADCS has previously expressed concern about the potential of the RCC model to improve outcomes and address challenges identified by both the Competition and Markets Authority and the MacAlister review itself (ADCS, 2023). Two regions are in the early stages of piloting RCCs; those interviewed who were involved in the piloting said that while DfE grant funding was helping to grow capacity, it was ‘a drop in the ocean’. Others expressed concern about shifting legal responsibility from a local authority to an unaccountable regional entity and uncertainties about the role of local authorities as corporate parents within these arrangements. Over the SP research timeline, a variety of factors have influenced the availability of suitable places for children to live safely and securely when alternative care is deemed in their best interests. 5.2 Fostering placements By far the largest proportion of children in care (around 67%) live in foster care placements (DfE, 2024e). The breakdown of foster placement types across the SP data series shows increased numbers of fostering arrangements involving family and friends, alongside reducing numbers of non-kinship foster carers (the latter often termed ‘mainstream’, terminology which may need reviewing). The increasing number of children living in the care of rela