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very much depends on the LA and on the agencies available in your area and really is like asking how long is a piece of string?! you can be sure though that both LA and agency will do their best to persuade you that THEY are better than the other!your best bet really would be to try and find people who foster for the LA and for various agencies and ask them what life is like for them, its amazing when you get chatting to people how many people you never knew about that foster!. there will be pros and cons for both LA and agency for example where I am the agencies pay better but (from what I hear from people using them) the agencies do not support as well as the LA particularly in training. the agency carers often take the harder to place children (not always but as a generalisation) so if you are looking at the younger age range then the LA is a better bet usually. the LA will often take you out of 'approval' ie ask you to take children that you are not approved to take, I have had this twice since july, indeed my first offer of a placement a few years back was a child way out of my approval range (i did say no!)! Think the agency carers may be better off in this respect (but could be wrong). another down side to agency fostering can be long breaks between placements, but those can happen in LA fostering too. hasn't happened to me yet but am sure it will one day!so not much help really! you might need to consider the age range you want to foster, whether finances are going to be important (if one of you had to give up work for example), and what kind of support you are going to want and see what is on offer. also bear in mind that often it is easier to recruit for the younger age range so you may find it takes longer to get approved as you'd not be a priority as if you were wanting to care for teenagers for example. your approval age range is not fixed in stone however and can be changed, mine has been twice, still out of approval at the moment though!

I am sure that this question has been asked before on the boards if you want to do a search.You need to talk to some LAs and VAs near you and see who they are recruiting for. It is the LAs who have the children not the VAs. Most LAs only use VAs if they cannot place the children within house. This is because using VAs costs them a lot of money.The following statements are generalisations -Most children without health problems or disabilities who are under about eight are placed with LAs. If you want to foster this age I would advise you to go with a LA.VAs tend to pay a lot more but you could have longer gaps between placements if you are doing short term. I have heard that VAs support better than LAs but I am sure it varies.If you can talk to foster carers who foster for different agencies then that it probably best.Good luckHilly7