PeakCare’s Position on Profiteering and Residential Statutory Care Services
Children and young people who are in the care of the State of Queensland because of a risk to their safety or wellbeing live in statutory care placements. These care placements are either in the home of a kinship care, foster care, or residential care arrangement. The State of Queensland contracts with not-for-profit and for-profit organisations to provide residential care placements for children and young people in care. A residential care premises is staffed by paid workers on a 24-hour, 7-day-a-week roster.
PeakCare’s vision is that Queensland children, young people and families in all their diversity are thriving with access to support, when and where it is needed. For children and young people in statutory care, supporting their wellbeing and healthy development is paramount.
PeakCare recognises that a small number of residential care placements are required to meet the diverse and complex needs of children and young people in statutory care. However, unlike other Australian states and territories, a significant number of children and young people in care in Queensland are placed in residential care. Furthermore, in Queensland more than half of the total Child Safety budget is now spent on residential care placements.
In its August 2025 report, “Buyer Beware, How economic forces are shaping Queensland’s residential care market”, the Queensland Family and Child Commission (QFCC) observed the current market structure for residential care has created opportunities for residential care supplier opportunism, reduced transparency, and limited accountability.1 These concerns raised by the QFCC are similar to concerns raised in the United Kingdom, where government reviews have identified profit margins of up to 20 to 30 per cent among large for-profit residential care for providers.2
Profiteering behaviours by residential care providers may include:
- Extracting excessive or unreasonable profit from government-funded services
- Prioritising financial gain ahead of care quality and workforce wellbeing
- Engaging in opaque financial arrangements that obscure true profit or ownership structures
- Failing to reinvest surpluses into improved service delivery, training or infrastructure
- Charging rates that exceed reasonable costs of providing safe, high-quality care
- Using public funds for organisational expenses that do not contribute to improved outcomes for children and young people
- Cherry picking clients to maximise profit
- Evasion of transparency and regulatory oversight
- Cross subsidisation between funded services and commercial operations
- Undermining the goal and trust of the public, of having care that is child-centred and focuses on the best interests of the child and other principles of the Child Protection Act3
In Queensland, there has also been increasing public awareness and concerns about the potential for profit-making, commercial market behaviours and poor quality and inconsistent standard of care across residential care organisations and geographical locations in Queensland. These concerns are currently being considered by the Queensland Child Safety Commission of Inquiry.
In England and Wales, the government has introduced financial oversight measures, transparency requirements, and profit-capping provisions to attempt to prevent excessive or exploitative profit making within their statutory care systems. These reforms recognise that all funding for residential care providers is intended for the care and safety of children and young people and to protect public monies.
In Queensland, PeakCare recognises that when essential community services are provided by for-profit providers and operate within competitive market settings, there is potential for financial behaviours that prioritise profit generation over the best interests of children and young people. Further, that such practices divert resources away from providing the best possible care to children and young people who have been placed in residential care. They also undermine community trust and confidence in the residential care system’s ability to provide high quality and consistent care to children and young people and acquit public monies accordingly.
To achieve PeakCare’s vision for all Queensland children, young people and families in all their diversity to be thriving with access to support, when and where it is needed, it is PeakCare’s position that all funds allocated for the care and support of children, young people, and families must be used solely for their benefit.
PeakCare supports the principle that service providers should operate transparently, ethically, and demonstrate a clear commitment to reinvesting surpluses into improving outcomes through sustained investment in service quality, workforce capability, and the wellbeing of children and young people.
PeakCare does not support the operation of organisations within the child and family sector whose primary purpose, or effect, is the extraction of profit that compromises service quality or outcomes for children.
PeakCare expects all its members to support children, young people and families to thrive and have access to the best quality and supports when they are needed and regardless of their geographical location. It expects all its members to be transparent and publicly accountable for their ownership structures, profit margins, reinvestment strategies, and more importantly for the outcomes that they achieve for the most vulnerable children, young people and families in Queensland.
We reserve the right to decline membership for organisations that engage in profiteering behaviour.
We welcome feedback and questions. Please contact PeakCare by phone on (07) 3368 1050 or email office@peakcare.org.au
1Queensland Family and Child Commission 2025, Buyer beware: How economic forces are shaping Queensland’s residential care market, Queensland Family and Child Commission, Brisbane.
2Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) 2022, Children’s social care market study: Final report, 10 March, CMA, London.
3Queensland Government 1999, Child Protection Act 1999 (Qld), current version, Queensland Government.
