The Department told us it wants the care system to be more flexible, and accepts the system is currently not very good at adapting to innovative or usual requests. The result is that the child will often end up in care settings that cost more than the adaptation might have done. The Department explained it wants the system to start from an understanding of “What will help this child get the right outcome, and how can we deploy this amount of money that we are highly likely to spend on the child anyway?” The Care Review estimated that the average cost of the provision of public services for those who enter care was £70,900, and above £200,000 for the annualised costs of an independent sector residential care placement.44 The Department stressed however that the funding system is not within its individual control, and can be hard for it to influence.45 Securing the benefits of evaluation